Almost all employers are required to carry Workers’ Compensation insurance coverage, however the specific details can vary by state. There are number of issues related to workers’ compensation coverage that are either unknown to most, or easily misunderstood. Here are five tips that will better help you manage your workers’ compensation insurance...

There is an election that the executor of your estate can make regarding the time at which property included in your gross estate will be valued: the date of death (the usual valuation date), or a date that is six months after the date of death (the alternate valuation date). For example, if a catastrophe hits your business and it's worth much less six months after your death than it was on the date of death, it may be worthwhile to use the later date.

The federal generation skipping transfer tax is an extremely complicated system meant to fill what was once a gap between the federal estate tax and the federal gift tax, which were meant to levy tax on substantial wealth transferred between generations.

If you are interested in passing along your business or other possessions at death to individuals or organizations of your choosing, the process of estate planning will give you greater certainty that your wishes will be carried out, and in a way that maximizes the amounts going to the objects of your bounty, and minimizing the amount that will be lost to taxes and estate settlement costs.

Property must be valued at its fair market value for purposes of the estate tax. In turn, fair market value normally is determined by a property's "highest and best use," that is, the use which would make the property the most valuable. This is true even if the property currently is not being employed in its highest and best use. For example, if the deceased was using a gold bar as a paperweight, you'd have to base its value on the price of gold per ounce, not on the going rate for heavy paperweights.

If the value of your small business makes up more than 35 percent of your adjusted gross estate, your executor may elect to pay the estate tax attributable to the business interest over a 14-year period. However, you also have to pay interest to the government on the deferred amount. In effect, Uncle Sam will take a mortgage on the business.

A power of appointment gives the holder of the power (usually the trustee of a trust) the right to appoint or give away property, usually the property held by the trust. The power may be limited by the trust document. A special power of appointment (one that a power holder cannot exercise in favor of himself, meaning that the power holder can't get the property out of the trust and into his or her own hands free and clear) is often teamed up with a marital deduction transfer to obtain tax savings.

Trusts are extremely valuable estate planning tools. They are extensively used in connection with property held for minors, life insurance, marital deduction bequests, and charitable transfers.

If you're trying to reduce the amount of your wealth that will be subject to the federal transfer tax by making lifetime gifts, giving away a life insurance policy can be a good idea. The reason for this is that life insurance is a fine example of an asset that can be expected to greatly appreciate in value. It may be worth relatively little while you are alive (particularly if it's term insurance, which has no cash value), but once you die, its value balloons.

Since lifetime gifts and transfers at death are added together for purposes of the unified transfer tax, and taxed at the same rate, how can it be that lifetime gifts can save you transfer taxes? Two reasons: the gift tax annual exclusion, and the fact that any appreciation in property value that occurs after the transfer is not taxable to the decedent's estate.

A gift of property or money to a qualified charity is fully deductible against the gift tax (if made by the donor during lifetime) or against the estate tax (if made after death). By themselves, each of these transfers can save up to 46 cents on each dollar contributed (46 percent being the maximum transfer tax rate in 2006). But if the charitable gift is made during lifetime, it also carries with it the advantage of being deductible against current income taxes. This could mean up to another 35 percent tax savings (based on the maximum individual income tax rate through 2010).

While the estate and gift tax marital deductions apply only to the value of property transferred to your spouse, as a result of something called the "unified credit," a total of up to $1.5 million (for those who die in 2004 or 2005) in lifetime gifts and transfers at death can be sheltered from the transfer tax regardless of whom the transfers are made to.

For purposes of the federal transfer tax, you can — during your lifetime, or at death — give an unlimited amount of wealth to your spouse tax-free. This can be a great advantage, but may not be the panacea that it is often described as. The reason: although you can transfer any amount that you want to your spouse, if your spouse survives you (and does not remarry), there will not be a marital deduction available to lessen the estate tax liability at his or her later death. For this reason, it's often a good idea not to give everything to the spouse outright, but to use a credit shelter bequest.

If qualified family-owned business interests (QFOBIs) make up more than 50 percent of your taxable estate, you may benefit from a special provision that can increase your total effective exemption from estate tax to $1.3 million.

The question of what to do about your business comes down to two main choices:

In order to pass on your wealth to your chosen beneficiaries at death, in addition to probate and other estate settlement costs, you (or more correctly, your estate) may have to pay death taxes at the federal level, and possibly also at the state level.

Sometimes the main function of a will is to give your executor the authority to collect your assets and cause them to be distributed to a trust that you have set up to receive them. This type of will (sometimes called a "pour-over" will) is often used when a trust is set up for estate tax savings, or to preserve family privacy. Remember that a will document becomes a public document when admitted to probate, available to anyone who asks the court for a copy, while the provisions of a trust may be kept from the public.

Your will should provide your executor with the authority to pay your family amounts needed for support during the period of estate administration. Although your executor (or even your administrator, if you died without a will) could get a court order allowing this even without a will provision, including such a provision may speed up the process and cut down attorney expenses and court fees.

If you die without a will, the probate court will appoint a person, called an administrator, who will act as a fiduciary to collect your assets and pay your debts (including taxes). Then, after the time period set by state law, the administrator will distribute your assets to those people entitled receive them. If you have a will, you get to choose this person (or a professional fiduciary, such as an attorney or bank) to handle these duties.

If you have minor children, this fact should be reason enough to have a will. While a court will not absolutely be bound to appoint the guardian that you have named in the will, your wishes normally will be respected. After all, you care about, and know, your children much better than any judge who will appoint their guardian, so why shouldn't he or she go along with your selection?

Probate. Utter the word to almost anyone and be prepared for exclamations of hostility and disgust. But, what is probate? Can it — and should it — be avoided?

A trust is a legal arrangement in which someone agrees to hold and manage property for the benefit of another. With a trust, three parties are involved: the one who transfers the property to the trust (called the grantor), the one who has the responsibility for managing the property (the trustee), and the one for whose benefit the trust is established (the beneficiary).

A power of appointment is created when you give a person the right to determine who will receive specified property that you own. You can create such a power that is effective while you are alive, or one that only arises by way of your will (called a testamentary power). While a power of appointment can be created by a will, as a practical matter, it's usually granted to the trustee or beneficiary of a trust.

Your will can transfer property to others in joint ownership (either in a tenancy in common, or a joint tenancy). You might want to consider such a bequest if you have a property that cannot be easily divided and there are two or more people whom you would want to benefit equally. Keep in mind that such an arrangement should only be considered if you're reasonably sure that these people can use and enjoy the property in harmony. If this is the case, joint ownership may be OK, but a tenancy in common might be more fair to the heirs of the beneficiaries, since the survivorship feature of a joint tenancy ensures that only the beneficiaries of the surviving joint tenant will ultimately get the property (unless the joint tenants agree to a partition of the property during their lifetimes).

When you create a will that substantially restricts your heirs' ability to use the property (or to pass it along to their heirs at death), two conflicting legal principles are involved: