Yes, You Do Need Asset Protection. Legally Mine Reviews the Reasons

Taken literally, asset protection means defending your assets, or your valuable possessions. Legally speaking, an asset protection plan describes a legal structure that protects your wealth, real estate, business, or other important assets from seizure by creditors.

Either way, doesn’t protecting the assets you’ve worked so hard for sound like a good idea?

Asset protection allows you to preserve your right to enjoy, use, or pass on your assets however you see fit. It’s how you ensure that everything you’ve earned in life doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. And it’s how you hold onto your legacy in order to decide who benefits from it.

Asset Protection Is for Everyone

Anyone can get sued. You never know when you might become involved or be dragged into a fight. Maybe it’s over property lines. Maybe someone gets injured on your home or business premises. Maybe you get in a car accident. Perhaps your business is sued by a disgruntled customer or vendor. Whatever the cause, everyone is at some risk of litigation. And if you own a business, data shows that up to 53% of small businesses become involved in one or more litigations during any given year. Those are some startling statistics.

Anyone who has assets—which means everyone—should take steps to protect them. Here, Legally Mine reviews just some of the important reasons asset protection should be part of your life.

1. Your Home Is Not Safe

Most of us think of our homes as a sanctuary. But when suits are filed, your home is usually the first asset creditors go after. If you get sued—which we’ve already established can happen at any time—your home is anything but a safe place. Asset protection is the only way to guard it.

2.              Your Business Is at Risk If your business is sued, you may be forced to close your doors and sell it and its assets in order to satisfy creditors. Even if you settle out of court, the monetary awards you’re forced to hand over would be enough to ruin many a small business. Setting up legal protection is the best way to ensure your business stays yours.

3.              Any Asset You Own is Fair Game Your cars, boats, vacation homes, savings, even valuable family heirlooms could be at risk of seizure in the event of a lawsuit. Even if it’s your business that is sued, if you haven’t taken the right steps to legally protect your personal assets, they could be taken away as the spoils of litigation.

4.              You Want to Retire If your retirement includes non-ERISA plans, the money held there could be seized in litigation. Non-ERISA plans generally include those where an employer is not involved. On the other hand, retirement plans with employer involvement are generally not subject to creditors. These include ESOPs, purchase pension plans, 401(k), and target benefit plans. An asset protection specialist can help you ensure your retirement and other wealth is safe from creditors.

5.              You Want to Control Who Gets Your Wealth When you pass on, you likely plan to leave your home, business, wealth, and other assets to your loved ones. But without the proper precautions, all of these things could be dealt out to creditors as part of litigation or lawsuit settlement. An asset protection strategy is the only way to ensure that your legacy stays in the right hands.

The Time to Protect Your Assets Is Now

In the event of a lawsuit, a judge is unlikely to give you a pass on any strategic actions taken to protect your assets after the fact. That’s why the most important part of your asset protection strategy is the timing, and the time is now. Whatever methods you decide to use to protect your assets, they need to be in place before any suit is filed. The process may be complex, but there is no reason to put it off. Talk to an attorney or asset protection specialist today about your assets and situation. He or she can help you structure an asset protection strategy that guards your business, home, property, and legacy.

Six Ways the Wealthy Manage Taxes

Taxes can be one your most significant expenses, and the government can place a heavy tax burden on wealthy individuals. If you have a high net worth and and want to learn how to save money on taxes, the following six strategies may apply to you.

Take Business Tax Deductions

Wealthy people who own businesses can take many more tax deductions than people who don’t. With the proper corporate entity in place—and an intent to create a profit—you may be able to deduct:

• Advertising
• Travel
• Office supplies
• Vehicles
• A home office
• Continuing education
• Meals
• Certain assets
• And more

You may also be able to depreciate a percentage of the cost of certain equipment. It’s vital to tap professionals like Legally Mine, though, to ensure the legality of your deductions.

Emphasize Investment Income

As much as possible, wealthy people switch from earned income, such as paychecks, to investment income. The government can tax earned income at a rate approaching 40%. In contrast, capital gains taxes on investment sales can be around 20%.

Take advantage of capital gains taxes by holding dividend-yielding stock and selling the shares when they appreciate. In addition, if you own rental real estate, you can deduct certain property expenses to reduce your taxable rental income.

Buy Whole Life Insurance

Some wealthy individuals and families use certain whole life insurance policies as investment accounts. The cash value of a policy can grow more quickly than the premiums paid into it, and the growth is tax-deferred.

For certain purposes, the owner of a policy can take out tax-free loans from the policy, possibly to buy investments. Of course, when the owner dies, the policy pays a large tax-free benefit to a beneficiary or beneficiaries.

As an investment strategy, though, whole life insurance may only succeed with the right product and an expertly-crafted plan.

Deduct Property Taxes and Mortgage Interest on a Second Home

If you have the resources to purchase a second home, you should look into the tax advantages associated with it. You may be able to take itemized deductions of property taxes and interest payments.

You might also be able to apply these tax advantages to a houseboat or yacht, if it contains a kitchen, a toilet, and a place to sleep.

Avoid the Estate Tax

If you have received a large inheritance or achieved a certain level of assets on your own, you might want to reduce your potential estate tax. Proper planning could increase the amount you leave to your family or other beneficiaries.

Common tactics for lowering your estate tax include:

• Giving gifts to family members
• Donating to charity
• Transferring assets to a family limited partnership
• Creating an irrevocable life insurance trust
• Transferring your home to a qualified personal residence trust

Contribute the Maximum to Retirement Accounts

You can further reduce your taxable income by contributing as much as possible to tax-advantaged retirement accounts. You can fund a 401(k), IRA, and other types of accounts with pre-tax money, even opening and using multiple accounts of different types.

Some account types allow you to choose between a traditional and Roth version of them. The traditional option gives you tax advantages immediately, whereas a Roth option gives you tax-free income during retirement.

How can you as an individual be sure you have the latest information on how to save money on taxes? Connect with an asset protection team such as Legally Mine, which continues to study the latest tax laws. The strategies above may change eventually, but a strong team can help you take advantage of the most current tax codes and achieve your goals.

Medical Malpractice: It Could Happen To You and Legally Mine Reviews Can Protect You

As a doctor, you’ve promised to do no harm. You care about the welfare of others every day. You’ve trained hard and you work hard. Yet someone could bring a medical malpractice suit against you, no matter how skilled you are.

We’re all human. No matter how hard you try, you can still make a mistake like anyone else. Many malpractice suits are based on an injury that was unintentional and might even be outside of a doctor’s ability to control.

It’s good if a team like Legally Mine reviews your assets and creates a plan to protect them. Of course, you care about patients and may want to help if they’ve been hurt at your practice. However, your personal assets often won’t be enough to cover a malpractice claim.

It’s important to make your personal assets invisible to potential plaintiffs—as much as possible. No one should take more than they deserve, and you shouldn’t become impoverished while you make things right.

Major Causes of Malpractice Claims

There are two major categories of causes behind malpractice claims: substandard care and failure to obtain informed consent.

Substandard Care

A malpractice suit must provide proof that a physician caused injury through substandard care, which can include mistakes or negligence in:

• Treatment (or the failure to treat)
• Diagnoses
• Medical decisions
• Dosage of medicine
• Aftercare

A malpractice suit generally can’t begin if a patient is simply dissatisfied with treatment. Even if a doctor provided substandard care, the plaintiff must have suffered an injury that led to considerable damage. Without that, a suit won’t get off the ground.

Lack of Informed Consent

What happens if you don’t get informed consent from a patient before a procedure? Even if you perform the procedure perfectly, a patient could bring a malpractice suit against you if the outcome of the procedure is unfavorable.

As you know, some treatments have a high probability of helping a patient and a small chance that something could go wrong. There’s risk involved, but some patients are willing to take it. However, without informed consent, you could be left responsible for any negative result.

Protecting Your Assets with Legally Mine

An ineffective way to try to prevent malpractice suits is this: requiring patients to sign a document stating they won’t sue. They don’t work because courts often don’t honor these agreements, because patients sign them without understanding their complex legal language. Plus, patients can feel insulted by them or suspicious.

Instead, you need to implement a legal asset protection plan, which minimizes the visibility of your assets. If plaintiffs and their attorneys don’t see that you own many personal assets, they won’t have the motivation to pursue a suit against you. They’ll have to go to your medical malpractice insurance instead.

There are complex rules and considerations involved in asset protection for doctors. For example, out of all the corporate entities you might use, only some will be right for you, and they can be set up correctly or incorrectly. Also, each state has different laws that apply to asset protection.

You might have heard that asset protection involves hiding money in another country and paying unreasonably large fees to do so. Fortunately, there are strategies available that are perfectly legal, ethical, and inexpensive. If a professional firm like Legally Mine reviews the best strategies with you, you can get a personalized asset protection plan that you can feel good about implementing.