Table of Contents

THY WILL BE DONE.; Wills.; Trusts and Fiduciaries.; Estate and Gift Taxes.; HOW TO GIVE IT AWAY.; Dispositions to Spouses.; Dispositions to Children.; The Revocable or Living Trust: An Estate Planning Panacea?; The Need for Legal Precision in Estate Planning.; AVOIDING TAXES -- EVERY CITIZEN'S RIGHT.; How the Rich Do It -- i.e., Get Richer.; Tis Better to Give Than to Receive.; CEDITORS, SPOUSES, EXPATRIATES, PARAMOURS, AND VITAL MISCELLANY.; How the Rich Stay Richer: Prenuptial, Postnuptial, and Cohabitation Agreements.; How the Rich Keep Their Assets from Creditors: Creditor--Conscious Estate Planning.; How the Rich Provide for Mistresses, Paramours, and Other "Secret" Beneficiaries.; The Last (Best?) Refuge of the Rich: Expatriation.; How to Compensate Fiduciaries and Lawyers.; Living Wills, Health Care Proxies, and the Right to Die.; MY LAST WORDS.; Some General Advice for Wise Estate Planning.; Glossary.; Appendix.; Index.

About the Author

"Bill Zabel is brilliant, ingenious, funny, and humane. This valuable book--which is so much like its author--will entertain and benefit all who read it." --S. Daniel Abraham, founder, Slim--Fast Foods; President and CEO, Thompson Medical Company, Inc.

Reviews

Zabel is a trust and estates attorney whose clients have included such luminaries as Doris Duke and members of the Rockefeller and Chrysler clans. Although he claims that his advice applies to all income brackets, most of it will more likely meet with success if followed by rich, sophisticated individuals with competent legal help. Average readers concerned about having enough to retire on will enjoy this book chiefly for its tales of the estate problems of the rich and famous. They will also derive a vicarious thrill from its coverage of topics like providing secretly for a mistress. While there is sound advice for the less-than-wealthy, the book does not offer the technical prerequisites that would enable most readers to do their own estate planning. An appendix gives forms and legal information on living wills and powers of attorney for healthcare. Recommended where interest warrants.-Sue McKimm, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, Ohio

Numbering among his clients Doris Duke and some Rockefeller and Chrysler heirs, New York City lawyer and estate-planner Zabel here explains tax-avoiding (not evading) measures available to the very rich in all the technical complexity of a modern democratic society's financial legalities-including certain confidential notions the IRS ``need not be troubled by.'' He deals plainly with common wills, trusts and annuities, and expertly with more sophisticated maneuvers like intrafamily gift deductions, ``defective grantor trusts'' and ``foreign asset protection'' in the Isle of Man-along with such devices as adopting one's mistress or companion. Interesting anecdotes abound: family havoc wrought by the intestate Abraham Lincoln and Pablo Picasso, and nuggets supporting the value of precise language from Shakespeare, Donne, Wilde, Shaw and more. Fans of Jackie O. will find a complete breakdown of her sensible estate plan. So if you expect to die rich... Author tour. (Mar.)