How to Laugh at Death and Taxes: What Executors, Willmakers, Heirs, and Beneficiaries Need to Know - Paperback

by Barbara Amsden (Author), Kelsey Power (Illustrator)

This book is for everyone at some time in their life. If you're breathing, this book's for you... or your parents, friends, teenagers moving into their first apartment, newlyweds, new parents, siblings, ... oh, and the person or people you name as executor. Hope to be a beneficiary or heir? Yup, you too. Think you can do it alone? Be my guest, but first Google "executor horror stories."

What makes this book different?
- It's four for the price of one: You can use it when you're naming, accepting to be, or serving as executor, and if you're an heir or beneficiary.
- It's by a layperson who survived: Most of what you'll find about naming, being, and dealing with executors comes from legal, financial, or tax experts, and governments. Makes sense. For them, death is a growth industry. But for you, it's about naming someone you trust to look after your affairs when you die, understanding the effort and risks if you've been asked to be an executor, managing an estate effectively if you're acting as one, and knowing where you stand if you expect to inherit.
- It offers useful tools: The book provides plain-language explanations, checklists, templates, and tips.
- It's long-lasting: While legal, tax, accounting, and financial rules change, and the book mainly uses Ontario examples, the process to follow and the questions to ask experts will not. Also, the approach is generally similar to that in many other countries.
- Caution: To help relieve the subject's misery and tedium, this book uses humour-be warned!