A comprehensive and thoughtful estate plan can avoid a great deal of difficulties later on. Often times there are tools which will allow for an organized and straightforward means of protecting your assets and ensuring that your wishes for the distribution of your assets after you pass on. If a person is not aware of these tools they may take unnecessary and unwise steps in an attempt to pursue their estate planning goals.

In a story reported last week a professed widow sought a marital tax deduction on her purported husband's estate. According to the woman, an apparent divorce in 1994 was invalid and she was still married to the man at the time of his death. She asserts that the divorce was obtained fraudulently and that the only reason the husband sought a divorce decree was to ensure that a certain portion of his assets would go to his son from a prior marriage.

The woman claims that the divorce was a fraud on the court and that there were no irreconcilable differences between the couple and that they continued to live together as husband and wife during and after the divorce order until the time of his death. She has filed a motion in state court to have the divorce judgment voided. The man had however filed numerous tax returns indicating that he was no longer married and deducted alimony payments from his income in tax returns.

Without knowing the exact details of this matter it is impossible to say whether the man's intentions in filing for a divorce were strictly related to shaping the distribution of his estate, or if some other method might have achieved these same ends. In general however, an experienced estate planning professional can often help you shape your estate plan in a manner that wil mitigate the risk of later legal complications.

Source: Boston.com "Feds: RI divorcee seeks $1.7M marital deduction" Laura Crimaldi, Aug 18, 2011