Social Networking Accounts: Who controls them after you die?

If State Representative Peter Sullivan of New Hampshire has his way, the executor or administrator of your estate could take control of your social media and other digital accounts after you die.

According to Sullivan, “The way we conduct our business as a society and the way our laws regulate how we communicate as a society have not kept up with technology.”

Since 2005, a few states have enacted their own laws dealing with digital assets after death. However, most of these laws are very weak and only go part of the way toward solving the problem.

And the Uniform Law Commission last August appointed a committee to draw up a law that would “vest fiduciaries with the authority to access, manage, distribute, copy or delete digital assets and accounts,” according to a draft.

The commission is a nonpartisan group that produces legislative language that can then be introduced and adopted in individual states, with the goal of creating uniform legal standards across state lines.

Sullivan’s bill would ensure that, in New Hampshire at least, the executor of a dead person’s estate “shall have the power, where otherwise authorized, to take control of, conduct, continue, or terminate any accounts of a deceased person on any social networking website, any microblogging or short message service website, or any email service website.”

“This would essentially extend the powers of the administrator or executor of the state to basically step into the shoes of the deceased,” Sullivan said, taking control of the account and making the decision either to continue operating it or shut it down.

Sullivan said he was inspired to file his bill after several high-profile cases of bullying that led to teenagers’ suicides. In some cases, he said, the bullying continued online even after death, and families faced difficulty gaining control of those social-media profiles.

“The law is very vague as to the power of survivors to do something about it,” he said. His bill, he added, is “going to bring the law up to date.”

Sullivan’s bill (HB 116) went before the State House Judiciary Committee for review this week.

Is everyone in support of this bill?

According to Rebecca Jeschke, a digital rights analyst at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, “There can be privacy pitfalls, though, to granting posthumous access to digital accounts. I personally don’t want my family to be able to read my email or other private online activity after I die. It’s private for a reason, after all. I’d be pretty suspicious of any bill that doesn’t default to allowing privacy for people even after they passed.”

Whether your state has a digital asset law or not, you can still take a few steps to protect your assets.

1. Make a list of all of your digital assets. The list should include your password for each. If it is easier, think about buying a password tracker like Roboform to handle this for you.

2. Think about what you want someone to do with your digital assets after your death. Who do you want to have access to them when you’re gone? Do you want them destroyed, memorialized, archived or transferred to someone else. It might be a good idea to write a letter concerning this issue and to keep it with your important papers.

3. When you prepare your will, trust and power of attorney documents, include a clause giving your representative authority to access your digital accounts. Even if your state law doesn’t cover the digital world, this clause may help your representative gain access to your accounts and to comply with your wishes.

For more information about this subject and others, go to www.diesmart.com.

2013 Federal Estate Tax

American Taxpayers Relief Act.

FINALLY! The first temporary rules were passed by Congress in 2001. Twelve years later and two major tax changes in between, it appears we FINALLY have permanent estate tax rules. Software companies, estate lawyers and financial planners should all be breathing easier after Congress passed the American Taxpayers Relief Act.

Here’s a brief summary of the federal estate tax laws included in the Act. The only change from the current federal estate tax rules that went into effect in 2011 is an increase in the tax rate.

1. The federal estate tax exemption allowance stays at $5 million.

2. Portability stays. Portability gives married couples the ability to exempt $10 million of assets from any federal estate taxes by filing a Deceased Spouse Unused Exemption Allowance form when the first spouse dies.

3. The estate tax rate on estates exceeding the $5 million estate tax exemption allowance will be 40%, a change from the current 35% tax rate.

Have you collected the Social Security benefits to which you may be entitled?

You worked hard your whole life and paid money into the Social Security program evey month. So did your spouse. And now that you are both retired, you are relaxing, enjoying life and collecting a benefit check every month.

But Social Security benefits are not just for retirement. They are for widows and widowers, too. That’s right. Some of the money you paid into Social Security during your working life goes to survivor’s insurance from which you may one day be entitled to collect benefits. The amount of those benefits is based on lifetime earnings.

It is important to know that the surviving spouse is not the only one who can collect benefits. Surviving minor or disabled children are eligible as well.

Diesmart has received questions from widows and widowers who want to be sure they have collected all of the pension benefits to which they are entitled. However, they usually either forget or don’t know that they are leaving money on the table when they don’t file for Social Security survivor benefits as well.

Don’t forget to contact the Social Security administration to find out what steps you need to take to collect benefits to which you are entitled. www.ssa.gov/survivorplan/ifyou.htm

For more information about death benefits, go to www.diesmart.com.

Can you listen to music after you’re dead?

If a deceased loved one was a music lover and you’d like to treat that person to an eternity of music (and we don’t mean from heavenly harps), now you supposedly can.

A company in Sweden, Pause, just released a new product called the CataCoffin and its CataCombo Sound System. It’s a $30,000 coffin that delivers “godlike comfort and heavenly sound”. The luxurious coffin includes “a revolutionary customized sound system for audiophiles on the other side”. You can customize playlists and let the music play for as long as you want.

How do you do this? A special tombstone above ground displays the playlists that can be customized by the deceased’s loved ones.

The commercial promoting the CataCoffin is a little eerie but you can judge for yourself. It will give you a good idea about the quality of the coffin and how the sound system works.

Pause company CEO, Fredrik Hjelmquist, owns the first manufactured model and says customers should feel free to add track to his playlist “Pause-4-ever”. If you’re in Stockholm, he invites you to head down to the Pause store at Norrlandsgatan 14 to see it for yourself.

Is this a real product? Supposedly it is.

For more information about coffins and other topics related to planning a funeral, go to www.diesmart.com.

What is the responsibility of a trustee?

When creating a trust managing family affairs, many of us designate a family member to serve as the trustee. A surviving spouse. The eldest child. In many cases, a family member does this job without compensation.

If you have agreed to serve as a trustee, you may not really know what you just agreed to do. You might even assume there is no legal risk in agreeing to serve as a trustee.

It’s not easy to find articles describing the job of a trustee that is not filled with legalese. This articled titled “A Novice Trustee Primer” does a great job of describing the responsibilities of a trustee and is is recommended reading if you have a trust, are thinking about setting up a trustee, or if you have agreed to serve as a trustee.