WESTERN MICHIGAN ESTATE PLANNING COUNCIL

Jonathan G. Blattmachr is director of estate planning for the Alaska Trust Company and a director of Pioneer Wealth Partners, LLC.  Mr. Blattmachr is the author or co-author of seven books and over 500 articles, and has been chair of several committees of the New York and American Bar Associations and the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He is also co-developer of Wealth Transfer Planning, a computerized system for lawyers that automatically generates estate planning documents, such as Wills and trusts, and provides specific client advice using a form of artificial intelligence. Mr. Blattmachr lectures extensively on a variety of topics, and specializes in estate and trust taxation.

This meeting will cover, which might be viewed by some individuals as the “modest” wealth category, the special hurdles they will face in estate planning.  This presentation will assume that the “modest” wealth category includes individuals whose net worth exceeds the amount which may be protected by the unified credit (for 2015, the equivalent of $5,430,000, but does not exceed approximately $10 million.

In general, people of modest wealth usually cannot or will not easily afford to give up significant amounts of their wealth during lifetime to achieve estate planning goals.  However, the lifetime transfer of wealth is one of the most useful ways available for reducing estate taxes and protecting assets from creditor claims.  Such individuals need estate and financial planning as much as anyone else does – perhaps, even more so.  These individuals, in a real sense, cannot afford to “lose” as much of their wealth to taxes, professional fees, claims and costs of administration as much wealthier people can.  This meeting will focus on estate planning arrangements that may be particularly useful to individuals in the modest wealth category.

Western Michigan Estate Planning Council Members no charge - Guests $25