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What Are Considered High-Risk Occupations?
High-risk occupations are careers with a high risk of getting into adverse legal issues that expose their assets for various reasons. Examples are lawyers, manufacturers, contractors, and medical professionals based on the nature of their businesses or work.
If you work in these positions, estate planning is crucial to protect your assets and business if creditors come after you or your clients file a lawsuit against you. Skilled estate planning attorneys in Pennsylvania can guide you in creating an estate plan that accounts for the possible consequences of a high-risk career to protect the wealth you have worked so hard for.
Why is Estate Planning Important for People in High-Risk Occupations?
The nature of high-risk occupations is such that they are inherently more open to liability. Proper estate planning can help these individuals minimize the risk they and their families face in unexpected eventualities, such as lawsuits or bankruptcy.
For example, malpractice suits are common for doctors and lawyers. Sometimes, it’s not their professional actions that put them at the most risk. Instead, they are more at risk due to poor tax and business planning, poor investments, and divorce than they are with the practice.
As an individual in a high-risk occupation, one of your most significant worries is protecting your assets from a lawsuit. Skilled asset protection planning lawyers in Pennsylvania can help you evaluate your options to shield your assets. Asset protection goes beyond drafting a simple estate plan; lawyers can advise on the steps to take.
What Does the Asset Protection Planning Process Look Like?
Assets protection planning for high-risk individuals involves arranging financial assets to preserve and protect assets in case of creditor problems due to high-risk activities, divorces, and lawsuits. It also revolves around preserving assets by reducing or avoiding income, gift, estate, and generation transfer taxes.
Asset protection planning lawyers in Pennsylvania provide legal counsel and support to high-risk clients seeking to protect their assets. The process is not new, and estate planning lawyers have incorporated it in estate plans for years through the following estate planning strategies:
Creating an Irrevocable Trust
Trusts are among the most versatile tools in estate planning and come in different types. They provide planners with multiple options to help them distribute assets according to their wishes while protecting them from lawsuits. Irrevocable trusts are more of a permanent estate planning option as the assets cease to belong to the owner once transferred here.
While this type of trust has limitations, the limits provide considerable protection from creditors who may want to lay claim to the contents. They make it easier to pass down assets to loved ones without worrying about them being taken away during lawsuits. Ensure you consult extensively to understand the difference between revocable, irrevocable, and other types of trusts to help you make the right decision.
Forming the Right Business Entity
Pennsylvania asset protection planning attorneys can help you select the most suitable business entity to protect your family and business. The proper business structure can help you maximize short- and long-term business success while protecting your personal assets.
Some business entities that you can consider establishing are:
- Corporations
- Limited Liability Companies (LLCs)
- Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs)
In addition to having the proper business structure, you can incorporate other asset-protective tools, such as Domestic Asset Protection Trust, that are unaffected by a lawsuit. Experienced estate planning attorneys in Pennsylvania can also help you explore some foreign estate planning tools that work best in asset protection:
- Civil Law Foundations
- Foreign Annuities
- Foreign Insurance
- Foreign LLCs
- Foreign Integrated Estate Planning Trusts
It’s crucial to note that any tool you choose for asset protection must be established before the occurrence of an issue that puts your assets at risk. So, the earlier you start the estate planning process, the better for you, your business, and your family. Consult skilled asset planning attorneys immediately to begin evaluating your options.
Poor Man’s Asset Protection Planning
High-risk individuals can use this asset protection strategy to protect their assets from potential lawsuits but should be aware of one type of risk involved: divorce. The plan entails transferring assets to the spouse’s name, assuming the spouse receiving the assets doesn’t have creditor claims or similar problems.
The spouse with the assets shouldn’t be a co-signor on any loans, lest they both find themselves with creditor problems later as creditors can lay claim on such assets. Given the rising divorce rates, you should only consider this asset protection strategy if you consider your marriage stable.
Alternatively, consider titling your property in joint tenancy with your spouse to save the assets from federal estate taxes. Upon your demise, your surviving spouse should also do proper titling of the property in their Will.
A Skilled Estate Planning Attorney Helping Individuals in High-Risk Occupations Protect Their Assets
Estate planning is an avenue to remove business and personal assets from creditors’ reach in case of a lawsuit. Experienced asset protection planning attorneys in Pennsylvania can help you create sophisticated asset protection plans to protect you from the risk of losing everything you’ve worked so hard for over the years.
The Peak Legal Group hosts dedicated estate planning attorneys to investigate your case. Once we evaluate your assets and type of occupation, we can discuss how best to protect your assets.
We aim to help you avoid common legal pitfalls you may be unaware of, which could put your beneficiaries in a difficult situation later. Let us help you plan your estate today for a better tomorrow. Call us at (610) 989-7064 to schedule a FREE consultation.
