Bay Area Trust Lawyer Reveals Additional Types of Income to Include in Your Estate Planning

There are some forms of income that obviously need to be discussed with your trust lawyer in the Bay Area.  When putting together your plan, you’ll want to consider your current employment, retirement plans, bank accounts, and possibly your own business.  As you work through the estate planning process, it will be clear that these are all things that need to be considered.

But, there are other, less obvious types of income that you will also need to take into consideration.  Working with a Bay Area trust lawyer, you can determine how these different forms of income will be treated when it comes to taxes, inheritance, and other applicable California and federal laws.

What are these not-so-obvious types of income? Actually, they can come in many forms.

• Royalties:  Are you collecting royalties on work that you created at some point in the past?
• Lottery Winnings:  What becomes of your winnings if you should pass away?
• Sale of Property:  The proceeds from sales like this can be considered as income and will be subject to treatment in that way.
• Gifts from Others:  There are times when certain “gifts” would not be passed to your beneficiaries, but would go to the benefactor’s alternate beneficiary.
• Annuities:  If you are receiving payments from a charitable annuity, this can be considered income.

In order to make sure that your executor has the easiest access to information regarding your finances, your trust lawyer in the Bay Area will likely encourage you to gather up all of the relevant information.  Include the source of income, contact information for that source, and a description of what it is and where it comes from.  If future payments are expected from that source, then you will want to be sure to make note of that, as well.

Expected Property

Along with these sources of income, you may also want to note if there is property that you expect to receive.  Whether or not this is considered part of your estate is a question you will want to cover with your Bay Area trust lawyer.  For example, if you are the beneficiary of an insurance policy, are named in a will, or have your name on a transfer-on-death title of someone else’s vehicle, you’ll want to be clear on what will happen to this property should you pass away or become incapacitated in some way.