Estate planning is a process designed to help you manage and preserve your assets while you are alive and to conserve and control their distribution after your death according to your goals and objectives.

Your age, health, wealth, lifestyle, life stage, goals, and many other factors determine your particular estate planning needs.

To help you understand estate planning, we offer the following suggestions as a starting point. We then suggest seeking professional advice to implement the right plan for you.

To begin, anyone over the age of 18 should have a durable power of attorney and an advanced medical directive.

Once material assets are acquired, even if you are single or an unmarried couple, a will should be executed to ensure that your property passes to the correct person upon your death.

If you already have estate planning documents, review them every few years to make sure that they accurately convey your objectives.

If you’re married and have children, you and your spouse should each have your own will.

For you, wills are vital because you can name a guardian for your minor children in case both of you die simultaneously.

If you fail to name a guardian in your will, a court may appoint someone you might not have chosen.

Furthermore, without a will, at your death, some of your property will pass to your spouse and your children, a result which may not be intended.

If minor children inherit directly, the surviving parent will need court permission to manage the money for them. Therefore, a trust may also be worth considering.

Depending on the size of your estate, you may not need to be concerned about estate taxes.

For 2013, $5.25 million is effectively exempt from the federal gift and estate tax. Estates over that amount may be subject to the tax at a top rate of 40 percent.

Additionally, there are certain portability rules available under recent law which may benefit your situation.

For many years, married couples had to do careful estate planning to take advantage of their combined federal estate tax exclusions.

A new law passed in 2010 allows the executor of a deceased spouse’s estate to transfer any unused estate tax exclusion amount to the surviving spouse without such planning.

You may be inclined to rely on these portability rules for estate tax avoidance.

However, portability should not be relied upon solely for utilization of the first to die’s estate tax exemption, and a credit shelter trust created at the first spouse’s death may still be advantageous for several reasons which should be discussed with your attorney.

This article was submitted by John P. Abriola, J.D., managing executive, Select Financial Group, LLC.