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Al Martinez was a longtime syndicated newspaper columnist. Toward the end of his career, he said that of all the controversial subjects he had written about (including a lot of articles about politics and social turmoil), the column that generated the most angry mail was when he suggested that it was perfectly okay to shave with cold water. I haven’t been writing for the Senior Voice for anywhere near the same length of time, but this is my fifth anniversary column (the Senior Voice staff n...
Baseball fans love to nickname things. A home run can be a simple “homer” but it can also be a “tater,” a “dinger,” a “jack” or “going yard”. In fact, there are dozens of nicknames for the baseball fan’s favorite play. One thing nobody in baseball likes to see, however, is a “comebacker”. That’s when the ball is hit directly back at the pitcher. Because the pitcher is off-balance after throwing the ball, he may not have a chance to get his glove up and protect himself, so a comebacker ca...
You know how nice it is when you get a toy you have been wanting? If you don’t remember that far back, think about how a child’s eyes light up when it sees a toy under the Christmas tree. Or if you like, a grown man’s reaction on his birthday when he unwraps that belt sander he has been asking for. Now imagine that you are given a toy you really want, but then told that you cannot play with it, you have to put it up on the shelf and just look at it. And you will know how I feel right now. (“Eno...
I can sum up the premise of today’s column in two words: philosophy matters. I’m not talking about Plato and Sartre and Descartes. I’m talking about the philosophy each of us brings to our work. Everybody has a philosophy for what they do. When you go to the doctor, she may have a philosophy of treating most infections aggressively with antibiotics, or she may have a philosophy of avoiding antibiotics unless they are absolutely necessary. If you use a tax accountant, he may tend toward aggre...
Covid-19 is some scary stuff. It’s even more so if medical procedures make you nervous. By now we’ve all seen videos of people having long swabs stuck far up their noses, or a tube stuck down their throats, or lying in a hospital bed gasping for air through an oxygen mask. So if you don’t like thinking about medical traumas … tough noogies. Read this anyway. The prospect of a looming medical crisis has a lot of people thinking about what kind of treatment they would want, if their circums...
This is the second time in less than two years I have written this column in the wake of a major traumatic event. A few days after the 2018 earthquake, I used that event to remind people that incidents like that should shake them out of their complacency and cause them to get their affairs in order. At the time I wondered whether, when the Senior Voice came out a month later, people would have largely forgotten the event (as it turned out, they had not). This time, a few weeks into the...
I’m keeping a list of the most frustrating myths I run into. First on the list, without a doubt, is the belief that a will avoids probate (it doesn’t). A close second is the myth that a Miller Trust helps you to get qualified for Medicaid if you have too many assets to qualify. That, too, is completely wrong. People find the concept of a Miller Trust confusing because every other kind of trust you will ever run into involves holding assets. You set up the trust, you put the assets into the tru...
IPop quiz: What is the most powerful estate planning tool? Most people are thinking: “That would be a will, right”? And indeed, the good old Last Will and Testament is important, but it has its limitations. The biggest one is, the will only applies to assets that have to go through probate. Since many assets don’t go through probate, the will doesn’t apply to them. In fact, in a great number of cases, the will is never even used. Others might be thinking: “A living trust is more powerful...
Well, they did it to you. Right before Christmas, too. Your Congress sent you a nice Christmas stocking, but inside was a nasty lump of coal. They eliminated the “Stretch IRA”. I guess I had better back up and explain. A stretch IRA is a device which estate planners have been using for many years, to minimize the income tax bite for your heirs. And now, except in limited situations, we can’t use it anymore. In fact, many people now desperately need to change their plans to avoid a huge incom...
I have had a lot to say about the problems with the probate system -- it’s expensive, it takes a long time, it is easy for a disgruntled heir or creditor to hold up the proceedings, it is very public -- and about how to avoid it. But today I want to talk about another imperfect system. If someone claims that you are not competent to handle your own affairs, the courts have an adult guardianship system to determine whether you need to have someone appointed to handle those affairs for you. T...
By KENNETH KIRK For Senior Voice Since I finally got my TV antenna adjusted, I’ve been watching more of those higher-number UHF channels, the ones with numbers in the 30s and 40s. A lot of those channels run the same commercials over and over, which is why I want to talk to you today about reversing hair loss. No, wait! Wrong topic! I mean, final funeral and burial arrangements! Sorry. I see a lot of those commercials for small insurance policies which say you can’t be turned down, no mat...
In the last issue of the Senior Voice, a reader named Yvonne Gossett from Palmer asked what sounds like a simple question: When I die, will Medicaid take my life insurance? She complained that nobody, not even Medicaid, would tell her. Presumably her concern is, why should I keep paying the premiums if the government is going to take the proceeds? That’s a fair question to ask. And you would think that the answer would be simple. But it ain’t. To begin with, even for attorneys who deal with Medi...
I have long been a fan of Robin Williams. From the first time I saw him, in "Mork and Mindy," to his wacky comedy routines on stage, to hilarious movies like "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Good Morning, Vietnam," to sensitive performances such as "The World According to Garp" and "Good Will Hunting," Robin never failed to deliver. And along with most of the world, I was shocked and saddened when, five years ago, he took his own life after being diagnosed with Lewy Body Disease. In terms of his estate...
What I really wanted to write about this month was the legislation making its way through Congress which would dramatically change how inherited IRAs can be taken out over time. That is what I wanted to write about. But I won’t. Part of the problem is that by the time this column reaches print, even though that may be only a few weeks, the legislation may have morphed into something completely different, or may have died completely. The other problem is that the details will probably change, a...
I don’t know how many times I have heard someone say “I don’t need to do any estate planning. I have a will and it does what I want”. Oh, I wish it was that easy. A will is a good and important thing to have, but it doesn’t do nearly what people think it does. For one thing, the will only controls assets that go through probate. So anything that does not go through probate, isn’t affected by the will. What doesn’t go through probate? For one thing, assets that have a designated beneficiary (...
Here’s an interesting question: The last time you were admitted to the hospital, were you admitted to the hospital as in inpatient? “Kirk, you’re crazy as a loon,” you might respond, “of course I was an inpatient the last time I was an inpatient. What else would I be?” But that wasn’t my question. You were admitted, given. But were you admitted as an inpatient? “I was,” you say, “and I have a plastic wristband to prove it. They kept me for several days, poked my arm for blood a bunch of ti...
Seated across the desk from me is the dejected widow. Arrayed around her are her children, there to give support. The mood is sad, as it always is in the days after a husband and father has died. “I’m very sorry to hear of your husband’s passing,” I say, “please tell me what I can do to help.” She sighs. “Apparently there were some assets which were just in my husband’s name. I understand we’ll have to go through probate. Can you tell us how to do that?” “Certainly,” I say, then ask a key questi...
I recently saw the movie "Bohemian Rhapsody", which tells the story of the rock band Queen and its lead singer, Freddie Mercury. Having come of age in the ‘70s, I found it interesting enough to look up some of the background. One of the more interesting stories told in the movie, and with fair accuracy, is Freddie’s relationship with Mary Austin. For many years, Mercury referred to Mary as his “common-law wife”. Even after they broke up, he referred to her as his “only true friend”. He even bou...
I recently read an interesting case; it happened in British Columbia, but it could just as easily have happened in any U.S. state. The father owned his home. He put his daughter on the title as half owner, with right of survivorship, so that she would inherit it on his death. Later, though, he got remarried, and he decided he wanted to change that to make his new wife the joint owner. There was one little problem. When you make someone a joint owner, you can’t change that unless the joint o...
I’m not a big fan of the adult guardianship system. I realize it’s necessary; there are a lot of cases in which guardianship or conservatorship is absolutely needed and there isn’t a reasonable alternative. But there are things that bug me about the guardianship system, and one of them is that it sometimes results in someone who is minimally competent, having a lot of their rights taken away. The statutes say that if someone needs a guardian, the judge is supposed to leave the person with as mu...
Very few people have to worry about estate taxes any more. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, only estates worth more than $11.4 million are subject to estate tax. However even fairly small estates can be subject to income tax. Most inherited assets do not count as income. If I inherit a house worth $400,000, I do not have $400,000 worth of income. I just get the house, tax-free. But if I inherit an IRA worth $400,000, I might very well have that much income. And that is because an IRA is...
As I write these words, it has been only a few days since the recent earthquake. By the time you read these words in the Senior Voice, though, it will probably be at least a month out, and most people will have forgotten about it. I don’t want to forget. Earthquake preparedness is a good thing. When something like this happens in a third world country, thousands of people can perish. We didn’t lose a soul. I’m convinced that part of that is the mercy of a loving God on our undeserving souls, but...
I’m not much of an oenophile. Occasionally I might enjoy a nice glass of wine with certain foods, but I can’t tell the difference between a Merlot and a Bordeaux. But despite my lack of sophistication in matters of the grape, I think about decanting quite a bit. To a wine connoisseur, decanting means pouring wine from one container to another. It is done either to remove sediment from the wine, or to let the wine breathe before drinking. But to an estate planner, decanting means something ver...
Sometimes when we talk about a particular subject a lot, we take it for granted that people know certain background facts. I realized this recently when I was talking about the high cost of probate (a subject I mention pretty regularly) and was asked whether it was in fact true that, as this person had heard, probate costs could run several thousand dollars. Several thousand dollars? That’s if you’re lucky. Probate costs money. A lot of money. In many states, the key players – attorneys and e...
Ask people their favorite Shakespeare play, and chances are they will name Romeo and Juliet, or perhaps Hamlet or Macbeth. A few of the cognoscenti might name something else, but they’re just showing off. If you are an estate planner, however, your favorite is likely King Lear. In case you haven’t read it lately (or ever) the play features a king of England who decides he wants to retire. He has three daughters, and he sets out to divide his kingdom among the three of them. He plans to keep the...
