Canton Asset Protection Lawyer
Estate planning and asset protection go hand in hand. While estate planning is the use of legal tools to distribute your assets after death, asset protection involves shielding those assets from creditors, taxation, lawsuits, and other parties so that your heirs receive as much of your assets as possible. Canton asset protection lawyer Brian S. Karpe creates estate and asset protection plans for all types of individuals, from those with modest to high wealth, young and old.
What Does an Asset Protection Lawyer Do?
Asset protection lawyers are tasked with structuring business to reduce the owner’s liability, and to create trusts and other legal tools used to safeguard and build a client’s wealth, better enabling them to pass on that wealth to their heirs.
Tools Used in Estate Planning Asset Protection
- Living (Revocable) Trust—As long as a living, revocable, trust is funded during the grantor’s lifetime, those assets can avoid probate (thereby protecting them from potential disruption during distribution).
- Irrevocable Trust—There are many types of irrevocable trusts, which cannot be altered after being created by the grantor. Because the assets placed in these trusts cannot be controlled by the grantor, they are no longer the grantor’s property. As such, irrevocable trusts are used to protect assets from creditors and lawsuits.
- Foreign Asset Protection Trust—This type of trust is held offshore, and is used to shield assets from creditors and taxes.
- Bypass Trusts—Bypass trusts are used by married couples to shield assets from federal estate taxes.
- Medicaid Trust—Medicaid trusts shield an individual’s assets by placing them in a trust for their own use, thereby enabling the individual to qualify for Medicaid’s long term care funding.
- Special Needs Trust—An individual with special needs may benefit from SSI and Medicaid, but not be able to qualify if they have any assets of their own. A special needs trust can be created to hold their assets so they qualify for these government programs.
- Beneficiary designations—A beneficiary designation enables an individual to say who should receive assets in their retirement accounts and life insurance policies.
- Family limited partnerships—A family limited partnership is used to transfer ownership of assets to family members while maintaining control over the assets.
Who Benefits From Asset Protection?
High net worth individuals obviously benefit from asset protection, particularly if they stand to pay estate taxes, or have businesses that could potentially open them up to liability. However, wealthy people are not the only ones who benefit from asset protection. In fact, protecting the assets you do have may be even more important to you, and your heirs, if you are of more modest wealth.
Call a Canton Trust Administration Lawyer Today
There are dozens of different types of asset protection tools at your disposal. Whether your goal is to restructure your business to reduce your own liability, shield your assets from creditors after you pass away, or avoid estate taxes or probate, we can help. Contact Canton asset protection lawyer Brian S. Karpe today at 860-217-1458 to schedule a free consultation.
