Free Resources

For More Estate Planning Information

To learn more about estate planning strategies, talk with an experienced estate planning attorney or financial advisor, and check out the following resources:

AARP: 1-888-687-2277; www.aarp.org. Ask for a copy of Product Report: Wills & Living Trusts. AARP does not sell or endorse living trust products.

The American Bar Association, Service Center, 541 N. Fairbanks Ct., Chicago, IL. 60611; 312-988-5522; www.abanet.org/publiced/publicpubs.html

Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc., 4200 Wilson Blvd., Suite 800, Arlington, VA 22203-1838; 703-276-0100; www.bbb.org

The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Inc., 1604 North Country Club Rd., Tucson, AZ 85716; 520-881-4005; www.naela.org

The National Consumer Law Center, Inc., 77 Summer St., 10th Floor, Boston, Mass. 02110-1006; 617-542-8010; www.consumerlaw.org

The Federal Trade Commission works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint or to get free information on consumer issues, visit ftc.gov or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

Experienced Estate Planning Associations

The American Bar Association’s Section on Real Property, Probate and Trust Law, http://www.abanet.org/, offers information about section activities, membership and publications. It has the tables of contents of Property & Probate magazine and Real Property, Probate & Trust Journal, with selected articles from the magazine. Also available are a handful of current-interest articles. A page on Internet resources has a good list of estate-planning discussion groups.

The American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, http://www.aaepa.com, divides its Web site into sections for lawyers, consumers and members. The members’ section requires a password for access. The site tells nothing of what resources are available to members and an e-mail to the Web master went unanswered. The lawyers’ section of the site is generally a membership brochure. The entire site appears not to have been updated since August 1996, including the "news" page, which is dated September 1996.

The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, http://www.naela.com, divides its Web site into a restricted area for members and a public area. The public area offers little but the promise of a link page "under construction." The private area is described as containing a member directory, discussion forums, publications and academy information.

American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, http://www.actec.org, limits the bulk of its Web site to ACTEC fellows. A request for information about what the private part of the site contains was not answered as of press time. The public part of the site has little but information about ACTEC.

The National Network of Estate Planning Attorneys, http://www.nnepa.com/public/, is a network of estate-planning law firms. Its Web site so far has only general interest for consumers about estate planning. It will eventually have a searchable directory of members and a restricted, members-only area.

Practice Resources

Ernst & Young Tax Services, http://www.ey.com/global/content.nsf/International/Services_-_Tax, is one of the best overall sites on the Web for tax news and analysis. The site offers a wide variety of articles delivering both news and analysis.

The Tax Prophet, http://www.taxprophet.com, is San Francisco lawyer and columnist Robert L. Sommers. His Web site, collecting his many columns and scholarly articles, is popular among professionals and consumers alike.

Trusts & Trustees, http://tandt.oxfordjournals.org/, is a resource-rich Web site about international trusts. In addition to a selection of full-text articles on the uses and formation of international trusts, the site includes descriptions of the trust laws of some 30 selected countries, summaries of recent court decisions relating to trusts, information on new trust legislation, and links to related sites. Unfortunately, much of the information is not dated, so the user is unable to determine its timeliness. Some of that which is dated, such as the case notes, suggest that the site has not been updated recently.

CCH Incorporated, http://www.cch.com, provides tax news and a tax research library via its Web site. Both, however, require subscriptions. Newcomers can get a tour of these services and information about pricing.

RIA Estate Planner’s Alert, http://ria.thomsonreuters.com/estate.html, offers a different, full-text article each week focusing on current tax news of interest to estate planners. On a recent visit, the article was, "Sixth Circuit Now Says Administration Expenses Must Be Necessary to Be Deductible."