"All you need to know about: wills & trusts; estate & gift taxes; avoiding probate; powers of attorney & living wills"--Cover.

Includes index.

Selecting your estate planning goals -- Personal concerns and estate planning -- Special property ownership rules for married people -- Inventorying your property -- Your beneficiaries -- Children -- Wills -- Probate and why you want to avoid it -- Living trusts -- Joint tenancy and tenancy by the entirety -- Pay-on-death designations, registrations, and deeds -- Life insurance -- Retirement benefits -- State law exemptions from normal probate -- Estate taxes -- Gifts and gift taxes -- An overview of ongoing trusts -- AB disclaimer trusts -- Other estate tax-saving marital trusts -- Charitable trusts -- Other estate tax-saving trusts -- Disclaimers : after-death estate tax planning -- Combining estate tax-saving trusts -- Property control trusts for second or subsequent marriages -- Trusts and other devices for imposing controls over property -- Incapacity : making medical and financial decisions -- Body and organ donation, funerals, and burials -- Family business estate planning -- Using lawyers -- After you complete your estate plan -- After a death occurs -- Sample estate plans.