Sandra E Foster - Author:
You Can't Take It With You
Today I am reviewing Sandra E. Foster's book You Can't Take It With You - Common - Sense Estate Planning for Canadians.
This is the fifth edition (2008) of Sandra E Foster's book with over 100,000 copies sold!! The first edition was published in 1996. It contains some solid and practical advice about estate planning for Canadians.
Unlike retirement planning which talks about how to manage your money for the time after you retire, estate planning is the step beyond retirement. This book talks about putting your finances in order before you die, and where and how to distribute you assets after you die.
- As the title of the book states, "you can't take it with you". Through out your life you accumulate assets as follows:
- Your House
- Your savings, either mutual funds, cash, stocks, investment properties etc
- Furniture
- Coin collections and other valuable collections
- Vehicles
- Business Assets
- Much More...
There are many issues that come into play when a person with assets dies. The assets have to be distributed to people named in the will. For tax purposes the assets must be valuated and then declared.
If you're accumulating assets, the time to learn about and work on your estate planning is while you are accumulating your assets.
As Ms Foster states in her book, "If you fall ill, I personally believe that the priority then is to be able to put time and energy into your health and your family and not worrying about estate planning or money in the last few days.".
This is what really attracted me to the book. I always like a common sense title like "You Can't Take It With You". We're all going to pass away at some point, and if we value our assets we should be starting now to figure out what to do with them when the inevitable time comes.
- Here are the titles of the first 7 chapters:
- Chapter 1: What is Estate Planning?
- Chapter 2: Dying Intestate: Distributing Your Estate without a Will
- Chapter 3: Distributing Your Estate With a Will
- Chapter 4: The Format of a Will
- Chapter 5: Giving Away Your Estate Now
- Chapter 6: Probate
- Chapter 7: Power of Attorney for Finances
Estate planning is all about valuing your assets and your loved ones. The worst thing you could do with all of the assets you've accumulated is let them get be distributed without a will. There are delays to distribution, higher administration costs, additional income taxes paid and more.
WANT TO ASK SANDRA E FOSTER YOUR QUESTIONS?:
I will be interviewing Ms Foster in the next few weeks, and am looking for questions from our visitors for her.
