Wills and estate · Guide
The 7 estate planning mistakes that cost families thousands
The paperwork errors that quietly undo decades of saving.
Wills and estate
What a will controls and what it does not, probate, beneficiary forms, dying without a will, and how long-term care and Medicaid reach an estate.
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A will does not avoid probate. It is what probate reads.
The largest accounts most families own pass by a form on file with a company, and that form outranks the will. What a will actually controls, what probate costs, and the shortcuts that keep most estates out of court.
You already have a will. The state wrote it.
Every state keeps a statute setting out who inherits when there is no will, and it takes effect automatically. It knows marriage, blood and adoption, and nothing else about your household. What the default actually says, and the three groups it leaves out.
Medicare will not pay for it. Medicaid will, once there is nothing left.
The largest bill of a long old age is excluded from Medicare by name, and the program that does pay it asks for almost everything first. The five year look-back, the penalty that starts at the worst possible moment, what the spouse at home keeps, and why a house that was never counted is sold afterwards.
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Give $20,000 to anyone in 2027 and no form is due. The gift tax itself does not start until $15.48 million.
The IRS has set the 2027 annual gift exclusion at $20,000 per recipient and the estate and gift exclusion at $15,480,000. What each number does, what a $50,000 gift to a child actually costs, and the two places a gift can still bite: a state tax and Medicaid.