The biggest mistake people make with estate planning is to fail do any planning at all. Often, this is the result of people mistakenly thinking that there’s no need for estate planning if their estate is smaller than the estate tax exclusion amount ($5.43 million in 2015).
What this line of thinking overlooks is that there’s a lot more to estate planning than just estate taxes. For example, the following are just a few important estate-planning considerations that have nothing to do with estate taxes.
Do you have a will, and is it up to date? There are many different ways that you might want to divvy up your assets, and there’s a good chance that your goals don’t line up precisely with your state’s intestacy laws (i.e., the laws that determine who gets what when somebody dies without a will). For example, you may want to leave a smaller portion of your assets to a particular heir because you gave him/her more financial assistance during your life. Wills are also important if you want specific people to receive specific items.
Estate Planning Is About More Than Estate Taxes – The Experts – WSJ