Intestate

If you die with no will, you’re said to have died intestate. You’re will-less. Sort of like a remote controlled zombie spirit. And this is bad if you had any dough left over at the end of your journey. Or at least bad for your would-be heirs.

Why?

Because with no direction as to where to leave your financial leavings, the State grabs it, more or less. And if an heir does materialize, then your money has to go through probate, which is like amateur-bate only, uh, it costs money.

So probate itself is the first step in dying financially. Or at least settling your estate. Specifically in expensive-to-the-estate probate proceedings, the court acknowledges that your will, whichever version you present to the course is, in fact, your will, and is representative of what you wanted your last dying wishes in giving away your money to be.

What can happen with poor estate planning? Just ask actor James Gandolfini. Well, you can ask...but he probably won’t answer. Gandolfini died in 2013, and when he did, his family had to deal with two shocks: the shock of his parting, and the shock of how royally he had screwed up his estate. Instead of everything going to Gandolfini’s intended beneficiaries, roughly $30M in taxes went to the IRS. And those guys didn’t even attend the funeral.

So yeah, intestate is bad. It puts your heirs in a difficult litigation situation, forcing them to endure a ton of taxes and grief, in addition to their, uh, grief.