Estate planning often has a more dramatic effect on women due elongated life expectancy and the tendency to marry older spouses. As a result, they are three times more likely to be widowed at 65, than men. Estate planning is an imperative component in retirement planning, and with a greater probability of surviving their spouses, women often have the final word about how much wealth goes to family, charity or the taxman.

(Read more: Women and Estate Planning: Part 1)

5. Spouses Get Special Tax Breaks
Under the “unlimited marital deduction” assets inherited or received as gifts from a spouse are not taxed. Starting in 2011, portability allows a surviving spouse to add any unused estate tax exclusion of the recently deceased spouse to her own exclusion. A widow can pass on up to $10.24 million, untaxed, through either lifetime gifts or her will. If your spouse is not a U.S. citizen, the marital deduction is more limited and portability does not apply.

6. Tax Planning For Widows Is More Difficult
The primary goal, for most married couples, is to leave each other provided for financially. Upon death of the first spouse, tax saving strategies are more imperative considering the unlimited marital deduction no longer applies. However, there are a number of simple ways to save taxes while achieving other goals, like subsidizing family members who are less fortunate, educating children and grandchildren and preserving retirement assets.

(Read more: Estate Tax On the Rise, Don’t Panic, Plan)

7. Do Not Own Your Insurance
Because proceeds could be subject to estate tax, you will likely give away money to the government if you die owning a policy on your life. One way to avoid that outcome is to designate the family member who will receive the proceeds as the owner of the policy. Another is to establish an irrevocable life insurance trust. Traditionally, the ILIT buys the policy and, when you die, holds the proceeds for whomever you have named as beneficiaries.

8. Beneficiary Forms Are Key
Retirement accounts are distributed according to beneficiary designation forms filed with the bank or financial institution holding your account. You can readily name any beneficiaries you desire with an IRA, including friends, family members, a charity or a trust. For a 401(k) or other workforce plan, you must acquire or spouse’s written consent to leave it to anyone else. You must filed an amended form to change a beneficiary, if you get divorced for example.

(Read more: 8 Life Stages of Estate Planning: Part 1)

9. Cash Is King
Couples who commingle money must ensure there is sufficient funds to cover immediate expenses if one of them suddenly dies. Said funds can be held in each of your separate accounts or in a joint individual account right away.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/pictures/efik45ehjjg/estate-planning-is-a-womens-issue-2/

Mr. Witzke practices in the areas of estate and gift tax planning, financial planning, retirement planning, LGBT civil rights, charitable giving, elder law, and small business planning. He focuses on helping clients grow, protect, and transfer wealth efficiently. Mr. Witzke is a past president and board member of the Financial Planning Association of Michigan, a member of the board of directors for Leadership Oakland, and a member of the planned giving advisory committees of Wayne State University and the Community House in Birmingham. Follow Mr. Witzke on Twitter @gr8estatelawyer.

Society with the increased used of the internet and the idea of “going paperless” is relying less and less on the real world and hard copies and putting more trust into the digital, virtual world or even the cloud.  When a loved one passes away and you are a trustee or personal representative trying to gather assets, this can present some interesting problems and quirks.  As Michigan estate planning and probate lawyers, I wanted to share some tips with you.

Know What to Find

Digital assets can include things like internet accounts, data, contractual and ineffectual property in the digital world.  You should be looking for things like email accounts, bank statements, investment accounts, credit cards, bill paying accounts, Facebook, Twitter, online gaming, online gambling, e-books, and retail.  Additionally, check for cloud based documents such as Dropbox, Google, Box.net, or SugarSync.

Get Your Google On

Do a Google search for the loved one’s name.  This may help reveal different accounts, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or other social networking or internet sites.  It’s amazing what you can find sometimes from a simple Google search.

Get Access to An E-Mail Account Quickly

Most people keep a spreadsheet on their computer of passwords or pass codes.  See if you can find a list stored on their computer.  If you can’t, take a stab at guessing some passwords, worse case, bring in an IT professional.

Get Access to E-Mail The Slow Way

If you are unable to access your loved one’s e-mail account, the slower option is to access it by contracting the e-mail provider.  Generally, sending a scanned copy of the death certificate along with letters of authority to the e-mail host will grant access to the account.

Do Not Close the E-Mail Account Immediately

Similar to keeping the “snail” mail coming to check on bills and accounts, it is important not to immediately shut down your loved one’s e-mail address.  This can be an easy way to find out about any bills, accounts, etc that your loved one had as the monthly emails come in to the account.

Close Your Loved One’s Other Accounts

It is important to close out the other accounts of your loved one, including Netflix, Pandora, iTunes, and especially anything that has a monthly fee associated with it.  However, be careful with certain digital assets because you need to know the value.  For example, some World of Warcraft accounts could be worth thousands of dollars and should consider being inventoried and then possibly sold.

Put Your Loved One’s Digital House in Order

Hopefully your loved one planned properly for their digital assets, for example a master document with all the relevant accounts and passwords could be stored with one’s estate planning documents.  This must be kept safe just like any other assets.

Special thanks to ICLE and Attorney Michele C. Marquardt.

I hear it from our estate planning clients every day, that they are happy to have the peace of mind that their estate planning affairs are in finally wrapped up.  Many of our Michigan estate planning (wills, trusts, powers of attorney) clients feel that prior, to meeting with us, that estate planning is a looming task.  But once we’ve completed the process and executed their wills and revocable living trusts, they have feelings of comfort and security.

According to a 2008 study by Thomson Reuters, only 40% of Americans currently have a last will and testament.  A last will and testament is a document that provides instructions to the Michigan probate court on how to administer your estate.   Understand that a will does not avoid probate, it only gives instructions to the probate court on administration.  If you fail to have a will or living trust, then the state of Michigan will administer your estate by the laws of intestacy.

So why do so many people leave their affiars up to chance or the whims of the probate court?

Well according to an article at funeral.com, there are four main reasons.

First, estate planning in Michigan is a very detailed process.  It is legally binding, attorneys are involved, there is an investment of financial resources and a number of complex decisions need to be made.  All of these activities, along with people’s hesitation to contact a Michigan estate planning lawyer can lead to overwhelm and procrastination.

Next, the actual process of completing an estate plan can take a couple weeks.  It is very easy to get distracted with the daily minutia of life, work, and tv and put off meeting with an estate planning attorney, spending time with the attorney so he or she can document your wishes and then executing your estate planning documents.

Sometimes estate planning has a hard time making it up your “to-do” list, and I understand.  Generally, us estate planning attorneys, see clients more interested in estate planning when a child is born, when a loved one passes away, or if someone is suffering a serious illness.  The difficult part, is that during these life changes and high times of stress, it is more difficult to complete the estate planning process due to the stresses caused by the life changes.  It is much easier to go through the estate planning process during a time when its easier to focus on the estate planning itself.

The fourth reason that you may be procrastinating on your estate planning is that going through the estate planning process can raise questions that are difficult to answer or you don’t have a perfect answer.  For example, one of the biggest hurdles for parents with young children is who to name as guardians of their minor children.  The fear of making the wrong decision can keep people from making any decision at all.  Keep in mind, that even though you may not have a perfect answer to who shall serve a particular role, the answer you have is better than the answer a judge or probate court who has no familiarity with your family has.

Are you procrastinating on your estate planning?  The first step is to pick up the phone and call an estate planning lawyer to get the ball rolling.  The first step is the hardest.

Our Michigan probate litigation law firm has handled a few probate litigation cases from clients in the Farmington Hills area.  It’s like coming full circle since I grew up in Farmington Hills area.  Specifically, I grew up in on 11 mile near Middlebelt, in Farmington Hills.

Who knew I’d grow up to be a probate lawyer servincing clients in Farmington Hills, Michigan?

Estate planning with revocable living trusts answer at least three main questions which includes: Who gets what?  How do you minimize settlement costs, such as probate and estate taxes? And, who is in control after the trustmaker passes away?

Barron’s has a great article entitled “The Five Biggest Ways to Bungle a Trust” that describes many of the mistakes that do-it-yourselfers face when they go at trust administration alone.  As Michigan trust administration and Oakland county probate lawyers, we are often brought in to clean up theses messes.

The first way people screw up trust administration involves keeping faulty records.  Generally trustees in Michigan must provide at least annual accountings to the beneficiaries.  Often, these accountings are slapped together at the last minute by an overwhelmed trustee.  As Michigan trust administration and estate administration lawyers, we professionally manage this process for our clients.  Whether we handle it in-house or outsource it to highly qualified CPA’s, our client’s understand that it’s professionally done and the beneficiaries of the trust appreciate the clarity.

Another way that trustees botch the trust administration process is by failing to diversify the trust assets.  It may be tempting to sit on a big chunk of a single stock, but often times, as prudent investors, it’s important for the trustee to diversify the portfolio so as to minimize risk for the beneficiaries.

Yet another trustee issue we see is that of biased distributions.  Trustees owe a fiduciary duty to the current beneficiaries and the remaindermen.  Therefore, a trustee cannot favor one beneficiary over another or allow any personal bias into the decision making.

The fourth area we, as Oakland county trust administration lawyers, see trustees making poor judgements is in the concept of the trustee expecting a payday.   Trustees, when acting without the aid of an trust administration attorney, often expect at the end of the day they will get a windfall for the efforts, when in reality, more often than not, they are only entitled to reasonable expenses and fees.  Quite often this is a source of probate or trust litigation.

Lastly, as a trustee acting alone, often times we’ll see that they have a false sense of safety.  A trustee acting without experienced Michigan trust administration counsel can feel that there is an entitlement and honor in serving the role of trustee at the other beneficiaries will defer to any judgements or decisions you make.  This generally cannot be further from the truth.  Quite often beneficiaries are looking for any little mistake a trustee makes, even in the best of families.

As a Metro Detroit estate planning and probate lawyer, I try to keep up on the latest news and blogs regarding probate and estate planning in Michigan.  That’s when I ran accross my friend and colleague, Grand Rapids Estate Planning Lawyer, Michael Lictherman’s latest blog post entitlted “Tips On Keeping Your Michigan Estate Out of Court.”

In his post he references another article and has a few quality tips on keeping your estate out of the probate court, which most of our clients wish to do.

You don’t need a Michigan estate planning lawyer to create a last will in testament in Michigan. All you have to do is hand write on a napkin what you want to happen if you were to pass away, then sign and date the napkin. Now you have what’s called, in Michigan law, a holographic will, which is legal in Michigan.

Now as a Michigan wills and trusts attorney would I recommend this? Probably not, for one thing a will, including a holographic will, does not avoid the Michigan probate process among other reasons.