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Over The Coffeecups
Warren Mitchell - Editor
TODAY'S
PROGRAM
President
Mike Winstead will introduce Mike Fritz, our very own member.
Mike is a staff attorney for the Bankruptcy Administrator for
the middle district of Alabama. He is a prompter on
bankruptcy laws. Mike will inform us about the laws that
affect people declaring bankruptcy.
LAST
WEEKS
PROGRAM
Al
McLellan
introduced
Mike Kirtland, who served with him at the Air Force
Academy when Mike was in the Air Force. While serving, he got
a law degree. He specializes in wills and estate planning and
Al said he is the most outstanding elder attorney in this area
in Alabama. They have done a lot of joint work, and that
joint in on Highway 82 between here and Tuscaloosa.
He said
it was interesting that Mike Winstead spoke of LSU. At one
time he had an LSU worker, but had to fire him because he used
his computer. He found out he was using the computer, because
there was white out on the screen.
Mike
said everyone needs estate planning, whether you are rich or
poor. He had a folder with scraps of paper in it telling what
he wanted done. It took 2 years to straighten out. The man
was healthy, a fighter pilot and a lawyer; who dies in a
theater. You can take care of your affairs now or leave a
mess behind for the people you leave behind. A little
planning in advance will make things as easy as possible for
those people you leave behind.
What you
need is a basic set of documents that will take care of you
and put your affairs in good order. The first of those you
need is a will that will take care of your assets. A will
expresses your own feelings and directions as to how you want
your earthly assets to be handled. If you don't have a will;
approximately 2/3 of people don't have a will, it means you
left assets to the state of Alabama and some group of
legislators, who year ago decided how you would divide your
property. If you have that much faith in your legislators
then you don't need a will.
President Bush had the estate tax raised in his last tax
bill. The tax exemption was raised to $1 million. January
1st it will go to $1.5 million and will continue to go up. In
2009 the exemption will $3.5 million and in 2010 the tax goes
away, 2011 it comes back to $1 million. The reality is that
the million dollar exemption only affects 2% of the people in
the U.S. That's not the reason to do estate planning; you do
it to take care of your family. If you are in a second
marriage and have young children, then you can avoid problems
that occur with the state of Alabama saying you have to give
money to children. It avoids
giving money to a 16 year old, which would buy a car and wrap
it around a tree. A will allows you to appoint a person
representative to handle your affairs; a responsible person
who has financial knowledge, rather than his son who is a
member of a rock band. He loves him to death, but he wouldn't
want him handling his money. If you have younger children,
you will appoint a guardian to take care of them.
One
thing you hear about is the horrors of probate. Probate is
the process where you take the will to court and enforce the
will. You read about how expensive probate is and that
everyone is looking at your affairs. Alabama has one of the
best, most straight forward, and easiest to administer probate
systems in the United States. It is not necessary to go
through all the hoops that people try to go through to avoid
probate. If we were in Florida it would be different or in
California we would be buying books on how to avoid probate.
In Alabama it costs $72.00 to probate a will. If your estate
doesn't have $72, don't worry about it.
In doing
estate planning it is one of the few times in life where you
look at the end goal and then figure out how to get there,
rather than take steps and hope you get there.
A new
client walks into his office and he asked him what would he
like to do? They all say they don't want to pay taxes. Worry
about what you want to do, not about paying taxes.
A will
is the first document needed. The next is a living will that
states how you want to be treated when terminally ill. In
Alabama the will is called "The Advanced Directive For Health
Care". In the will you express your preferences as to how you
want to be treated in terminal situations by your doctors. In
the immediate future, within six months, the living will takes
over; you can express whether you want life support. The other
situation that it covers is permanent unconsciousness, and you
are in a coma and not able to speak for yourself.
A health
care proxy can be appointed that can make health decisions if
you are unable to do so. As long as you are 18 years of age
you can be covered by the document.
Durable
power of attorney can be a person appointed to take care of
personal affairs. Whether you are able to or not the person
can conduct business or health affairs for you. The only
thing he can't do is the other 2 documents.
LAST
WEEK'S
GUESTS
Mike
Fritz had his son, Michael, Jr., accompany him.
Always good to see Michael, Jr.
Karl
Schwartz, an honorary member was with us. It was his 82
birthday.
Past
President Ward
Knockemus an
honorary member was with us. It was his 82 birthday.
THOUGHT
FOR
THE
DAY
Mike
had a computer bulletin about a new virus. The most advanced
Norton and McGraffery programs aren't able to fix it. It only
affects computer users born before 1960. It causes them to
send e-mails twice; sometimes you might send a blank e-mail or
send an e-mail to the wrong person. Sometimes it causes you
to send a message before you're finished. It's from the nile
family. It's called senile.
Club
Officers
for
2003-04
The
Club officers for 2003-04 were installed by Past Lt. Governor
Truel Watts. He did the short version, installing all
the officers and board members at once. He said it was a
great honor to be asked to do the installation and
congratulated the officers. He told the members that he felt
he didn't need to install Charlie Eckerly and Pete Summer,
because they had been doing it for so many years, they
couldn't be disinstalled.
He said
one of the best dictates of Kiwanis was to have Past
Presidents serve on boards. Past President Wilkinson was
presented his Past President's pin and thanked for having a
successful year.
He told
the new President Mike Winstead to let his board and members
help. Lt. Governor Watts offered to help any way he could and
presented him his President's pin.
PEANUT
ARE
COMING
James
Jones and El Kidd went to get 1,100 lbs of peanuts last
Friday.
George
Worley and El Kidd
spoke to
the new Manager of J.C. Penney's, Jimmy Jones. It was
suggested that we should bag the peanuts Saturday, instead of
Monday. Barnie Paulson was going to try and get
members to start bagging at 8:30 Saturday morning. If it
doesn't work out, the time will be changed back to Monday
afternoon.
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