Personal Finance (Not Investing) • Death of Spouse - - Some Unanticipated Aspects and a Question

And so it is with "do not resuscitate" and "do not feed" types of directives for end of life. The emotions that come into play in such situations are incredibly powerful. Having directives made in advance with pure rationality helps when the time comes because of their legal importance and because they serve as a reminder of your joint thoughts when two of you were making rational decisions together as opposed to the contrary emotions you may feel very, very strongly alone aside your loved one's death bed.

I think the hard part for many people is telling the provider what the patient wanted, even if it is different than what they would want for themselves. I've also heard that when a couple is signing their health care POAs, some lawyers will have each spouse look at their partner and let them know this is what they want. This is meant to help the caregiver spouse to feel freer to do what the sick spouse wanted.

. 3 . Death Certificates (this is a minor, minor point)

I helped administer an estate some 40 years ago. No matter how many certified death certificates you ordered, it seemed not to be enough. Things seem to have changed. Today, in my experience, nearly everyone accepts PDF scans.

About 15 years ago when a relative died, I only ordered 3 or 4 death certificates and asked each company to return the original, which they all did. Then I re-cycled them to other companies I had to deal with.

Q3: Is the step-up always based on the price of the stock on the date of death? I think this must be true but I thought I heard someone suggest it may not always be (but I also think that had to do with non-spousal inheritance issues).

If someone dies on a weekend, you can use the cost of the assets on the last day the stock markets were open.

There is also something (which I don't remember) where you can use the asset values on the day that is 6 months after date of death.

Thank you in advance for answers to my questions. And in return for all I've learned on this site and to make whatever good I can out of so sad an experience I hope that sharing aspects of my experience may be helpful to others.

And I hope our responses are helpful to you!

I'd like to remind you that since this is the last year you can file as MFJ, you might want to take advantage of it and do some Roth conversions. When you file as Single in the following years, you will have half as much space in each tax bracket compared to those who file as MFJ. So take advantage of the last MFJ year to convert because you may be pushed into a higher tax bracket next year.

Statistics: Posted by celia — Thu Sep 19, 2024 1:45 am — Replies 20 — Views 1957

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