You can use a ‘living trust’ to pass your property on to others according to the rules of the trust, while bypassing the rules of probate and its time-consuming process. Let’s clarify some facts about Living Trusts.

Like all trusts, it has a trust document that rules on how the trustee must handle the trust’s property for the trust beneficiaries. Typically, you have the trust set up according to your wishes with you as a co-trustee and fund it with your property for the benefit of your children when you die. The trust – not you – is then owner of any property put into it. So you must re-title all that property in the trust’s name. Drawing up the trust and changing titles are costs to you.

At your death, anything owned in your name will go through probate – where the court determines and publicizes who gets your property according to both your will and the rules of your state’s inheritance laws. To bypass probate, you must get all your property out of your name. Also, create a ‘pour-over will’ that pours whatever you forgot to re-title into your trust at death.

The typical probate costs you will bypass are:

• Filing and court fees which are at least 3% of the value of the estate in most states.
• Executor’s commission in most states is a percentage of the value of the probate estate.
• Lawyer’s fees.

Other property that also bypasses probate are:

• Property that is owned jointly with the right of survivorship but not tenants-in-common.
• Pension, IRA, and Keogh plan benefits with a named beneficiary.
• Life insurance death benefits payable to a named beneficiary.
• Government bonds and bank accounts with a designated pay-on-death beneficiary.

A Key Point to remember: Your living Trust is considered your property for taxation purposes.

A living trust is a revocable trust. That means you can dissolve it and take back your property into your name. Whether or not you do – is immaterial. But because of this ‘control’, the IRS deems it essentially your property.

As a result, your living trust property is a part of your property for tax purposes. As trustee you are liable for paying yearly taxes on all taxable gains and earnings of your trust property. You can add this income directly on your own 1040 form when you do your taxes.

Your living trust property is also subject to your estate taxation when you die. So you do not save on estate taxes by putting property in your living trust. That is not its purpose.

New Paradigm in Health and Aging Featured on ABC Primetime News

The Aging problem…

There’s nothing like a new car, and you never forget the day your drive your first one off the lot. But eventually your new car ages, the catalytic converter becomes less effective, the exhaust isn’t very clean, things begin to rust and the engine suffers wear and tear.

Our cells are like car engines. They have the same combustion process, produce some of the same byproducts and clean up with similar catalytic converters. When we’re young, our enzymes (our cells’ catalytic converters) function well and do a good job cleaning the toxic byproducts our bodies generate. But unfortunately, like cars, our bodies don’t always function like new. As we age, our bodies produce more free radicals and less of the special enzymes that fight free radicals causing oxidative stress. The damage by oxidative stress leads to the symptoms of aging.

We obtain energy by burning fuel with oxygen-that is, by combining digested food with oxygen from the air we breathe. This is a controlled metabolic process that, unfortunately, also generates dangerous byproducts. These include free radicals-electronically unstable atoms or molecules capable of stripping electrons from any other molecules they meet in an effort to achieve stability. In their wake they create even more unstable molecules that attack their neighbors in domino-like chain reactions. This causes toxic effects that damage all components of the cell, including proteins, lipids and DNA.

What is oxidative stress?

Oxidative stress represents an imbalance between the production of oxygen and the body’s ability to detoxify and repair the damage caused at the cellular level. In other words, although we need oxygen to live, high concentrations of it are actually corrosive and toxic.

While one antioxidant molecule can fight only one or two free radicals before it is depleted, the body’s free radical-fighting enzymes can each eliminate up to 1 million molecules per second, every second. The most effective way to fight free radicals and the oxidative stress they cause is to trigger the body to produce its own free radical-fighting enzymes. Protandim activates the body’s natural enzymes that substantially reduce free radicals.

How Protandim works…

Our bodies already contain the information how to effectively combat stressful situations, such as oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. That information is stored in our genes. The secret lies in being able to instruct cells regarding the implementation of that information. Enter Protandim.

Protandim, the most potent and the only commercially available Nrf2 Synergizer dietary supplement, induces cells to produce more of the genetically encoded catalytic defense systems. Every enzyme molecule produced by this approach can eliminate up to 1 million free radicals per second, every second.

Protandim achieves this feat by activating a signaling molecule called Nrf2, the master regulator of the body’s aging process. Nrf2 can switch on protective genes and switch off genes that may have a negative effect on health.

When this protein messenger, Nrf2, is activated, it enters the nucleus of every cell and turns on hundreds of the body’s survival genes. These genes enable cells to survive in the face of several different kinds of stress, especially oxidative stress. Nrf2 also affects hundreds of other genes, pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic genes, by turning them down.

Thus Protandim, a master regulator of the aging process and an Nrf2 synergizer, activates survival genes, including antioxidant genes that keep us safe from free radicals and oxidants. It also turns down genes that perpetuate inflammation and genes that encourage slow, progressive fibrosis to take place. Together these actions provide a remarkable promise of protections from many kinds of age-related health conditions.

See the “ABC Primetime Special Report” @ www.abcliveit.com

   For more information contact:  Nan Cutler of Best Health Group

                                besthealth3@yahoo.com or  970-215-7660

                                               www.lifevantage.com/thrive

Experts advise caretakers to watch for significant shifts in behavior. Things like missed appointments, unpaid bills and a lack of interest in favorite activities may be causes for concern. These should prompt a reevaluation of an elderly loved one’s level of care.

Keeping an elderly loved one in one’s home can be a challenge, but there are services available to help. Adult day facilities provide meals, company, activities and medical care. Medicaid-eligible seniors are able to enter some of these programs at no cost.

Senior Corps is another helpful service. Senior Corps volunteers visit the elderly at home to provide companionship. Occupational therapists can help you alter a home to make it more usable and safe for an elderly person.

Persuading an elderly loved one to accept help can be a struggle. Giving orders is likely to meet resistance. Let him or her know that he is doing you a favor by accepting care by putting your mind at ease. Making many changes at once can be bewildering, so try to start small. Hiring someone to assist with a chore that he or she dislikes is a good way to start introducing help.

Source: How to Help an Aging Parent

Older retirees often need help around the house. You may hire someone for house cleaning or to help you with some Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) associated with long-term care. What are your tax obligations for this person?

It depends on whether he or she is your employee or simply a contractor. If she is your employee and you pay her more than $1,700 during the year (for 2010, Notice 2008-103; 2008-46 IRB 1156) the IRS requires you to deduct from her wages Social Security and Medicare taxes. But paying her less than $1,700 releases you of any tax obligation for her even if she is an employee.

If she is a contractor, she is responsible for paying her own taxes, leaving you with no tax obligation for her. This is clearly less burdensome for you. So when is a person a contractor versus your employee?

Contractor or Employee?

The IRS^[1] says a worker is your employee if you can control not only what work is done, but how it is done. And, it does not matter whether it’s full time or part time work, or how you pay her – hourly or otherwise.

As an example of an employee relationship, the IRS says, “You pay Betty Shore to babysit your child and do light housework four days a week in your home. Betty follows your specific instructions about household and child care procedures. You provide the household equipment and supplies that Betty needs to do her work. Betty is your household employee.”

On the other hand, if only the worker can control how the work is done, she is not your employee but is self-employed. Self-employed workers usually provide their own tools and offer services to the general public as an independent business.

As an example of a ‘non-employee’, the IRA says, “You made an agreement with John Peters to care for your lawn. John runs a lawn care business and offers his services to the general public. He provides his own tools and supplies, and he hires and pays any helpers he needs. Neither John nor his helpers are your household employees.”

Note that ‘employee status’ requires that you have control over the ‘how to – instructions’ not just the end result of the work; and, that you supply the ‘tools’ to achieve the ‘end result’; and that you did not make an ‘agreement’ for the end result as ‘contracted’ work. Consider these points well when you seek help at home.

The IRS says not to let the worker talk you into paying cash and not reporting the taxes; if the worker ever turns on you, he or she can get the IRS to require you to pay these amounts, as well as penalties and interest.