Legacy Planning
What is Estate Planning?
Who Needs Estate Planning?
Nearly everyone.
While your specific estate planning needs can vary based on several factors, such as your age, health, wealth, and goals, nearly everyone can benefit from having a structured, well-designed estate plan in place.
First and foremost, you want to remain confident regarding your own financial security. After safeguarding your own financial wellbeing, you may wish to shift your focus to helping family now and when you are gone. The question is, how can you do so in a way that provides your family the maximum benefit, yet still encourages your heirs to achieve all they can?
When the planning is poorly structured, you may find your hard-earned assets are unnecessarily taxed, squandered by loved ones, exposed to lawsuits or creditors, or, even worse, create substantial family conflict and enable risky and indulgent behavior.
It can be especially important to have a structured plan in place when you fall into any of the categories below:
- A desire to delay distribution of wealth to your heirs
- Second marriage for one or both spouses
- Business owner
- Charitable intentions
- Children are minors or have special needs
- Estate is valued at more than the threshold
Estate planning encompasses all aspects of how your assets are distributed upon your death – from appointing the beneficiaries to constructing strategies for passing wealth to heirs outside of the “death tax”. Given our extensive experience working with wealthy families, we are able to speak intelligently about innovative planning techniques using plain English. We can also help you connect the financial dots in plain English. We work hand in hand with your accountant and lawyer to ensure your plan is up to date and does what you want it to do. We review it regularly and are proactive in making recommendations as needed.