Founded in 1946 as the Dallas Estate Council, incorporated in 1975 as the Dallas Estate Planning Council, we are a non-profit professional association. The primary mission of the Dallas Estate Planning Council is to provide our members with the latest tools and techniques in estate planning. Our programs generally qualify for continuing education credit for attorneys, CPAs, insurance agents, CFPs and in the CTFA trust management program of the American Bankers Association. The Council strives to foster understanding of the proper relationship between the functions of the disciplines and to encourage co-operation of persons acting under those disciplines. This web site will provide our members with new services and opportunities to share resources and information not only with our own members but also with other estate planning councils throughout the country.
Dwight Eisenhower said, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” It is the advisor-lead planning process itself that is of value to the clients, not the documents. By planning I mean 1) speculating about the cause and effect relationship between what you do today and what will happen in the future relative to your objectives 2) asking “What facts, if they exist, would prevent you from achieving your objectives?” and 3) finding out how likely it is that those facts could exist. By examining these alternative facts, and what to do if they occur, you can anticipate possible future situations and know what to do when it happens.
Related to the health care power of attorney is a separate document known as an advance health care directive, also called a "living will". A living will is a written statement of a person's health care and medical wishes but does not appoint another person to make health care decisions. Depending upon the jurisdiction, a health care power of attorney may or may not appear with an advance health care directive in a single, physical document. For example, the California legislature has adopted a standard power of attorney for health care and advance health care directive form that meets all of that state's legal wording requirements for a power of attorney and advance health care directive in a single document.[15] Compare this to New York State, which enacted a Health Care Proxy law that requires a separate document be prepared appointing one as your health care agent.[16]
With a living will, you can make decisions to have or not have treatments to prolong your life. You are able to do this before you need them. You can choose to stop, limit, or not have certain medical treatments. Think about how you want to feel and how long you want to be able to live. For example, you may be willing to have some pain with a treatment if it allows you to live longer. You may want to refuse or stop treatments that prolong life, but cause you constant or severe pain. Some of your treatment choices include:
A power of attorney may be: special (also called limited), general, or temporary. A special power of attorney is one that is limited to a specified act or type of act. A general power of attorney is one that allows the agent to make all personal and business decisions[10][11] A temporary power of attorney is one with a limited time frame.[12] If ever required, a durable power of attorney can be revoked or changed as long as the principal is still mentally competent to act.
One of the major identity theft categories is tax identity theft. The most common method is to use a person's authentic name, address, and Social Security Number to file a tax return with false information, and have the resulting refund direct-deposited into a bank account controlled by the thief. The thief in this case can also try to get a job and then their employer will report the income of the real taxpayer, this then results in the taxpayer getting in trouble with the IRS.[23]
Depending on the jurisdiction, a power of attorney may be oral and, whether witnessed, will hold up in court, the same as if it were in writing.[6] For some purposes, the law requires a power of attorney to be in writing. Many institutions, such as hospitals, banks and, in the United States, the Internal Revenue Service, require a power of attorney to be in writing before they will honor it, and they will usually keep a duplicate original or a copy for their records. Nursing homes often follow the same practice.
The Department of Justice prosecutes cases of identity theft and fraud under a variety of federal statutes. In the fall of 1998, for example, Congress passed the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act. This legislation created a new offense of identity theft, which prohibits "knowingly transfer[ring] or us[ing], without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of Federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable State or local law." 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(7). This offense, in most circumstances, carries a maximum term of 15 years' imprisonment, a fine, and criminal forfeiture of any personal property used or intended to be used to commit the offense.
You should also consider how you will pass a portion of your estate to a minor child through a will. A will places your decisions in the hands of the judge presiding over your estate transfer. Your testamentary will carries out your wishes from beyond the grave. A will also allows you to give insight and direction over the handling of assets your beneficiaries will receive.
Six Federal agencies conducted a joint task force to increase the ability to detect identity theft. Their joint recommendation on "red flag" guidelines is a set of requirements on financial institutions and other entities which furnish credit data to credit reporting services to develop written plans for detecting identity theft. The FTC has determined that most medical practices are considered creditors and are subject to requirements to develop a plan to prevent and respond to patient identity theft.[58] These plans must be adopted by each organization's Board of Directors and monitored by senior executives.[59]
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A grandfather may encourage his grandchildren to seek college or advanced degrees and thus transfer assets to an entity, such as a 529 plan, for the purpose of current or future education funding. That may be a much more tax-efficient move than having those assets transferred after death to fund college when the beneficiaries are of college age. The latter may trigger multiple tax events that can severely limit the amount of funding available to the kids.
Like a power of attorney, a trust may authorize an individual (the “trustee”) to act for the maker of the trust during the maker’s lifetime. Like an agent, the trustee may manage the financial affairs of the maker of the trust. A trustee has power only over an asset that is owned by the trust. In contrast, an agent may have authority over all of the principal’s non-trust assets. Another important distinction is that a trustee may continue acting for the maker of the trust after the maker of the trust dies. In contrast, the power of attorney expires upon the death of the principal. Whether a trust or an agent is the most appropriate tool for a specific situation is a question that should be addressed to an attorney.
A variation of identity theft which has recently become more common is synthetic identity theft, in which identities are completely or partially fabricated.[14] The most common technique involves combining a real social security number with a name and birthdate other than the ones associated with the number. Synthetic identity theft is more difficult to track as it doesn't show on either person's credit report directly but may appear as an entirely new file in the credit bureau or as a subfile on one of the victim's credit reports. Synthetic identity theft primarily harms the creditors who unwittingly grant the fraudsters credit. Individual victims can be affected if their names become confused with the synthetic identities, or if negative information in their subfiles impacts their credit ratings.[15]
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