My number one spiritual gift is teaching. The Bible teaches that Christians are each given certain “extras” designed to help benefit all believers together (aka “the Church”). Sometimes these gifts are pretty miraculous. Sometimes these gifts are enhancements of our own natural abilities. The Bible calls them “spiritual gifts”. Spiritual gifting is how a guy [..]
I recently hosted a seminar in Dallas-Ft. Worth as part of our estate planning series on the comparative differences between those who die with an estate plan (we called it a Will for brevity’s sake, but there are other planning options) and those who die WITHOUT a plan. Statistically, almost 60 percent of Americans say [..]
Retirement can be stressful, especially if you aren’t sure you’re ready. A growing list of factors – from health concerns to market risk – are threatening retirement strategies across the board. As our population gets older, more and more people are lying awake at night wondering “Do I have enough to retire?” Here are some [..]
Roughly 60 percent of Americans have no estate plan whatsoever; 70 percent with kids under 18. Let that number sink in for a second. It is staggering! When asked, half of those said they just hadn’t gotten around to it. Only four percent cited cost as a factor. As our nation ages and we continue [..]
Do I Need and Will or a “Living” Will? A client asked me this question yesterday and it occurred to me that it might be good content for a blog post. It’s actually a topic that I am more familiar with than I wish. In January 2016, my good friend and former law partner suffered [..]
Any transfer to an individual, either directly or indirectly, where full value is not received in return is considered a gift. The gift giver is generally responsible for paying any gift tax. The general rule is that any gift is a taxable gift. However, there are many exceptions to this rule, including an “annual exclusion [..]
October 24, 2018 – FRISCO, TEXAS The Law Office of Lorne C. Book, P.C. announces that Lorne C. Book has been selected to the Texas 2019 Rising Stars list by Texas SuperLawyers! Each year, no more than 2.5 percent of the lawyers in each state are selected to receive this honor. Super Lawyers, a Thomson [..]
(photo courtesy of http://ultimateclassicrock.com/survivor-eye-of-the-tiger/) If you have a Will, you may have noticed some seemingly nebulous language like this: No beneficiary named herein shall inherit from my estate unless she has first survived me by at least 30 days. Otherwise she shall be deemed to have predeceased me for all purposes of this Will. Wait, [..]
“Estate planning” is a deceptive term. Most people think, I don’t need estate planning because I don’t have an “estate”. I’ll admit, the word “estate” does conjure images of Bruce Wayne or the Biltmore. That’s hardly most people’s world, present company included. The best approach to “estate planning” however focuses not on the estate, but [..]
It’s 3:30 a.m. You can’t sleep. That unanswered question is keeping you up: Who’ll take the kids if we both die? Maybe that’s as far as you’ve gotten: a question in desperate need of an answer. Maybe you have started the conversation once or twice (or a hundred times) and hit the same roadblock: Well, [..]
