My Approach to Estate Planning

Bernie's Area of Practice:

I am dedicated to providing a range of estate planning services, including analysis, design, drafting, implementation and estate and trust administration. Our firm has provided these services in the State of Colorado for more than 32 years.

I use legal strategies focused on the elimination or reduction of estate taxes, and the effective administration of estates and trusts. We follow a Tax & Family Wise approach to estate planning.


Family Wise Estate Planning

We suggest Family Wise Estate Planning to our clients. This means:

* Choosing the correct advisers
* Determining your estate planning goals
* Reviewing your plan periodically. See below for how to do this.
* Determining the value of your assets and how they are titled
* Creating your estate planning foundation with necessary legal documents
* Structuring your insurance benefits properly and coordinating all other beneficiary designations
* Considering advanced estate planning strategies
* Use your estate tax exemptions, such as the applicable exclusion, also known as the death exemption.

Making Sure Your Plan is Current

We suggest that you have a Tax & Family Wise Estate Planning Assessment periodically to make sure your estate plan is current with applicable law and your goals. This should be done every 12-15 months. This is now even more important due to the new tax law known as EGTRRA of 2001. This tax law requires ongoing reviews of your estate plan and several revisions in order to keep it calibrated and current with the changes coming in 2005; 2006; 2009; 2010 and 2011 under present law. This may involve amending an older plan in order to provide flexibility and protection to your spouse and family.

We are proud to participate on lawguru.com and provide answers to estate planning questions for the lawguru.com website. To visit their site, lawguru.com.

If you would like us to assist you with your Tax Wise Estate Planning Assessment, email us at: bernie@bhgreenberg.com or call our office at 303-730-7100. We will be happy to help you.