Estate Planning
Estate planning is the process of ensuring that your wealth is directed according to your wishes after you die. Making sure your wealth goes where you want it to is not just a simple matter of preparing a will – although a will is almost always a key part of your estate planning. You also need to consider things such as your superannuation benefits, family businesses, assets owned by legal entities such as family trusts as well as assets owned as joint tenants, etc.
It is also vital that your estate planning be consistent with your current financial planning, to ensure that your affairs are handled as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, both now and in the future.
Relevant Articles...
What’s the Drum on Capital Gains and Residential Property?
Did you know that there is a kind of tax that is great to pay? It’s called a capital gains tax and it’s great for one simple reason: you only pay it when you make a capital gain! A capital gain means you sold an asset for more than you bought it for. That is always better than the alternative, which is selling an asset for less than you paid yourself.
How to Find Yourself Singing in the Rain
Last week we discussed how the Governor of the Reserve Bank Phillip Lowe recently recommended that home borrowers ensure that they have a ‘buffer’ against the time when interest rates inevitably rise. Interest rate buffers are not the only type of buffer in good financial planning. Buffers are used in many areas, but the need for buffers always comes from the same source: understanding that the way things are now is not likely to be the way things are in the future.
What is a testamentary trust?
Testamentary trusts are one way for people to ensure that their assets are well managed after they die. Read on to learn more about this important aspect of estate planning.
Housing’s Tug of War
This week, we saw another version of the tug of war at play in Australia’s residential property market. APRA is trying to pull prices in one direction while other arms of Government strive for the opposite result. Time will tell whose arms are stronger, but people wanting to buy homes should be barracking for APRA. A win for APRA would save people years of hard work.