Five Estate Planning Mistakes to Avoid

Five common estate planning mistakes are easy to avoid with the right information and support, as well as a little creativity.

While it’s true that no estate is completely bulletproof, there are mistakes that people make that are big enough to walk through, while others are more like a slow drip, making things harder in a slow but steady process. There are common estate planning mistakes that can be easily avoided, reports Comstock Magazine in the article “Five Mistakes to Avoid When Planning Your Estate.”

  1. Misunderstanding Estate Law. Some people are so thrown by the idea of an estate plan, that they can’t get past the word “estate.” You don’t need a mansion to have an estate. An “estate” does not mean extreme wealth.  The term is actually used to refer to any and all property that a person owns, regardless of debts. Even people with modest estates need a plan to help beneficiaries avoid unnecessary costs and stress, and typically estate planning is even more critical for such individuals. Talk with an estate planning attorney to learn what your needs are, from a will to trusts to incapacity planning. Make sure that this is the attorney’s key practice area.  A real estate attorney, family law attorney or the friend or family member who is a lawyer won’t have the same knowledge and experience.
  2. Getting Bad or Incomplete Advice. It takes a team to create a strong estate plan. That means an estate planning attorney, a financial advisor and an accountant. Look for a firm that will tailor an estate plan specifically to your goals. The is no one size fits all approach, and many tools are needed for a complete estate plan. Buying an insurance policy or an annuity is not an estate plan, but may helps achieve those goals.
  3. Naming Yourself as a Sole Trustee without a Back-up. Naming yourself as a sole trustee puts you and your estate in a precarious position. What if you develop Alzheimer’s or are injured in an accident? A trusted individual, a family member, a longstanding friend or even a professional trustee, needs to be named to protect your interests, if you should become incapacitated.  This is also why you should have Durable Financial Powers of Attorney and Healthcare Powers of Attorney, among other documents, to ensure someone you trust may act on your behalf if you cannot.
  4. Losing Track of Assets. Without a complete list of all assets, it’s nearly impossible for someone to know what you own and who your heirs may be. Some assets, including retirement funds, life insurance policies, or investment accounts, have named beneficiaries. Those people will inherit these assets, regardless of what is in your estate plan. If your heirs can’t find the assets, they may be lost or there may be a long delay in obtaining them. If you don’t update your beneficiaries, they may go to unintended heirs—like children of prior relationships, someone other than your spouse and so on.
  5. Deciding on Options Without Being Fully Informed. When it comes to estate planning, the natural tendency is to go with what we think is the right thing. For example, people often say “I just need a will,” but learn later that the will requires probate, or doesn’t address the disability of a child.  However, unless you are an estate planning attorney, chances are you don’t know what the right thing is. For tax reasons, for instance, it may make sense to transfer assets, while you are still living. However, that might also be a terrible idea, if you choose the wrong person to hold your assets or don’t put them in the right kind of trust.  It may also make sense to leave income taxable assets to charities, and non-income taxable assets such as life insurance, to individuals.  You don’t know what you don’t know, so it is important to work with an estate planning attorney to craft the plan that’s right for you.   See here for some estate planning frequently asked questions to get you started.  https://galligan-law.com/estate-planning-questions/

Estate planning is still a highly personal process that depends upon every person’s unique experience. Your family situation is different than anyone else’s. An experienced estate planning attorney will be able to create a plan and help you to avoid the big, most commonly made mistakes.  Please contact our office to discuss how your plan can avoid these estate planning mistakes.

Reference: Comstock Magazine (Dec. 2019) “Five Mistakes to Avoid When Planning Your Estate”

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How the SECURE Act Impacts Your Estate Plan

The SECURE Act made major changes to beneficiary distributions you should consider in your estate plan.

The SECURE Act has made big changes to how certain retirement plans, such as IRAs, 401(k)s, and 403(b)s, distribute after death. Anyone who owns such a retirement plan, regardless of its size, needs to examine their retirement savings plan and their estate plan to see how these changes will have an impact. The article “SECURE Act New IRA Rules: Change Your Estate Plan” from Forbes explains what the changes are and the steps that need be taken.  Our firm has mentioned the SECURE Act in past blogs, such as here:  https://galligan-law.com/proposed-ira-rules-and-their-effect-on-stretch-iras/ on Kevin’s Korner and will address the impact of these changes in the future, but today I wanted to focus on some key issues as mentioned in the article.

First, the SECURE Act means changes to some existing estate plans, especially ones including provisions creating conduit trusts that had been created to hold retirement plan death benefits and preserve the stretch benefit, while the retirement plan owner was still alive.  Existing conduit trusts may need to be modified before the owner’s death to address how the SECURE Act might undermine the intent of the trust or to evaluate possible plans.

This first change will apply to many, many clients.  A typical client who may be affected by the SECURE Act is a parent creating a trust for their children’s inheritance.  These types of trusts typically serve to provide creditor or divorce protection for their beneficiaries while maximizing the tax benefits of stretching the retirement.  Now that the stretch benefit may not apply to a beneficiary, it may make sense to alter the trust to maximize asset protection instead of the tax savings that are no longer available.  If you have this situation, you definitely want to review your plan.

Another potential strategy for clients who are including charities in their estate plan be making a charity the beneficiary of the retirement account, and possibly using life insurance or other planning strategies to create a replacement for the value of the charitable donation to heirs.

One more creative alternative is to pay the retirement account balance to a Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT) on death that will stretch out the distributions to the beneficiary of the CRT over that beneficiary’s lifetime under the CRT rules. Paired with a life insurance trust, this might replace the assets that will ultimately pass to the charity under the CRT rules.  This is a more complex strategy, but may be effective for charitably minded clients.

The biggest change in the SECURE Act being examined by estate planning and tax planning attorneys is the loss of the stretch treatment for beneficiaries inheriting retirement plans after 2019. Most beneficiaries who inherit a retirement account after 2019 will be required to completely withdraw all plan assets within ten years of the date of death.

One result of the change of this law will be to generate tax revenues. In the past, the ability to stretch retirement payments out over many years, even decades, allowed families to pass wealth across generations with minimal taxes, while the retirement account continued to grow tax free.

Another interesting change: No withdrawals need be made during that ten-year period, if that is the beneficiary’s wish. However, at the ten-year mark, ALL assets must be withdrawn, and taxes paid.

Under the prior law, the period in which the retirement assets needed to be distributed was based on whether the plan owner died before or after the RMD and the age of the beneficiary.

The deferral of withdrawals and income tax benefits encouraged many retirement account owners to bequeath a large retirement balance completely to their heirs. Others, with larger retirement accounts, used a conduit trust to flow the RMDs to the beneficiary and protect the balance of the plan.

There are exceptions to the 10-year SECURE Act payout rule. Certain “eligible designated beneficiaries” are not required to follow the ten-year rule. They include the surviving spouse, chronically ill heirs, disabled heirs and some individuals not less than 10 years younger than the account owner. Minor children are also considered eligible beneficiaries, but when they become legal adults, the ten year distribution rule applies to them. Therefore, by age 28 (ten years after attaining legal majority), they must take all assets from the retirement plan and pay the taxes as applicable.

The new law and its ramifications are under intense scrutiny by members of the estate planning and elder law bar because of these and other changes. If you believe these changes affect you, contact our office at 713-522-9220 to review your estate plan to ensure that your goals will be achieved in light of these changes.

Reference: Forbes (Dec. 25, 2019) “SECURE Act New IRA Rules: Change Your Estate Plan”

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How Does a Trust Company Work?

A trust company may provide expert investment, asset management and estate settlement services for clients who need them.

Although they aren’t for everyone, a trust company can provide a variety of investment, tax and estate planning services for their customers.  Wealth Advisor’s recent article, “Understanding How Top Trust Companies Operate,” gives us a high-level overview of the nature and function of trust companies, as well as the services they provide.

A trust company is a separate entity owned by a bank or other financial institution, or in some cases by a law firm or other professional. It can manage trusts, trust funds and estates for individuals, businesses and other entities. In most cases the assets are held in actual trusts, with the trust company named as the trustee. They typically use several types of financial professionals, including financial planners, attorneys, portfolio managers, CPAs, and other tax professionals, trust officers, real estate experts and administrative personnel to effectively manage the assets.

Trust companies perform a wide variety of services related to investment and asset management. Most companies manage the investment portfolios within the trusts of their clients, however some prefer a client’s financial advisors do so instead. There’s also a variety of investments, such as individual securities, mutual funds and real estate, that can be employed to achieve growth or income.  They also can provide safekeeping services within secure vaults for other types of tangible investments or valuables, like jewelry, and occasionally for important documents, such as an original will or trust.  They also take full fiduciary responsibility for their clients’ financial well-being. This means that the clients’ best interests are always considered in each service and transaction performed.  See here for a fuller list of areas where a professional fiduciary may be utilized.  https://galligan-law.com/practice-areas/estate-planning/

Most clients use trust companies for estate settlement services, either as the executor or a trustee.  They can perform such tasks as valuation, dispersion and re-titling of assets, payment of debts, and expenses, estate tax return preparation and the sale of closely held businesses.  Trust companies frequently work with their clients’ heirs to provide the same types of services to the estate assets’ recipients as to the donor.

Trust companies aren’t for everyone, but serve a vital role in some estate plans.  They are especially useful where there are likely to be family disputes, disabled or very young beneficiaries, or in some cases, where a client doesn’t have someone they feel comfortable putting in charge of their estate.  Most clients who want to use a professional trustee must meet certain financial requirements, usually including at least a certain net worth, but for clients with these concerns, it’s worth it.  See Kevin’s Korner for more ideas on how to pick your fiduciaries.  https://youtu.be/W2LjFQFmY_I

If you expect to avoid family disputes in your estate, have young or disabled individuals or don’t have someone suitable, you should consider the use of a trust company in your estate plan.  Please contact our office for a free consultation to discuss how a professional fiduciary can help you achieve your goals.

Reference: Wealth Advisor (December 10, 2019) “Understanding How Top Trust Companies Operate”

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