Writing Your Tulsa Estate Planning Blog

You can think about estate planning in many different ways. One of the simplest and best approaches is to think of estate planning as a way of telling your family that you love them.

Estate planning is often thought of in cold or detached legal and financial terms. It is a way to decide who will get your assets, after you pass away and what the best legal instruments are for distributing those assets.

Viewed in that way, estate planning might not seem very important to many people, especially if they do not have many assets and do not particularly care about the legal aspects of transferring those assets after they pass away.

There is, however, another way to think about estate planning as Lifezette reports in “Estate Planning: A Love Note to Your Family.”

Estate planning is a way to let your family know that you love them.

As the article suggests, it is a love note to your family. You might not care too much about how your assets will be distributed when you are no longer around to worry about it, but it can make a big difference to your family.

Getting a proper estate plan, can spare your family the costs and legal headaches of having to go through the probate process. It can even stop them from fighting over who gets which assets.

When you think about estate planning in those terms, then it should be obvious that everyone should get an estate plan. If you love your family, it is one the best things that you can do for them.

Reference: Lifezette (March 7, 2017) “Estate Planning: A Love Note to Your Family.”

People who do not have a large amount of assets, think that they do not really need an estate plan. They are wrong.

Not everyone is wealthy. Not everyone has billions, or even millions, of dollars that need to be divided up between their relatives after they pass away. In fact, most people do not have that kind of fortune and never will.

Many of the people who are not wealthy, think that means they do not need estate plans. They reason that if there is little to divide up, then there is little to fight over. Consequently, they believe everything will go smoothly.

Unfortunately, that is a myth.

Even people who do not have a large estate need an estate plan, as the Pauls Valley Daily Democrat explains in “More on estate planning myths.”

You never know when family members will decide to fight over an estate and exactly what they will fight over. While it is true that a large amount of money often leads to a fight, it does not always do so.

Sometimes the most bitter of estate battles are actually over little things. Some estates have even been known to easily settle large fortunes, but have long and bitter feuds over small personal items that are not worth very much.

This means families might choose to argue over estates that do not have anything of value, if there are sentimental items wanted by more than one family member.

It happens a lot more often than you think.

No matter how much money you have, you need to see an estate planning attorney and get an estate plan.

Reference: Pauls Valley Daily Democrat (March 1, 2017) “More on estate planning myths.”

Much of the world’s wealth is in the hands of a relatively small number of super wealthy individuals. Many of them are now elderly and making plans about what will happen to their wealth, after they pass away.

Over the past few years, you may have heard reports about income and wealth inequality in the U.S. Economic data shows that the country’s wealth is rapidly being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, at the top of the socioeconomic scale.

As a result, many politicians like to talk about the top 1%. However, the data shows that wealth is even far more concentrated than that. Actually, it is in the top 0.1%.

This same phenomenon is not just occurring in the U.S. It is happening all over the world.

What will happen to all of that concentrated wealth when the current holders pass away, is a burning question as they continue to get older and older and eventually die?

This was the subject of a recent Private Wealth article “The World’s Aging Rich Are Plotting What’s Next.”

The article provides many examples of what various wealthy people are planning. They naturally wish to keep their wealth away from waiting governments and do not want their families to fight over it.

This has led to various legal methods to avoid estate taxation and other problems.

Some are choosing to transfer the bulk of their assets to family members now. Others are planning to give a large portion of their wealth away to charities, so their families have nothing to fight over.

Since much of the world’s wealth is in complicated trusts and other entities, it will be interesting to see how it all gets sorted out when the current holders continue to age and do pass away.

Reference: Private Wealth (March 3, 2017) “The World’s Aging Rich Are Plotting What’s Next.”

Even if you do not think that you need an estate plan, there are a couple things that you absolutely must do.

You need to do some estate planning. Even if you think that you do not, you do.

Your possessions will not just magically go to whomever you want after you pass away, if you do not make some sort of estate plan.

While you should visit an estate planning attorney and get the most comprehensive estate plan that you can get, you might wonder what the absolute minimal amount of estate planning you can do to make sure that you have everything done that is absolutely necessary.

Recently, Fidelity discussed that in “Estate planning must dos.”

There are really two things that must be done at a minimum.

First, you need to check beneficiaries on documents such as life insurance policies and retirement accounts. These beneficiaries are legally entitled to the proceeds of the accounts after you pass away.

The second thing you absolutely must do is to title any real property you have appropriately. Of course, what is appropriate titling, depends on your individual family situation and is something you should discuss with an attorney.

Those are the two absolute basic minimal estate planning requirements.

If you do not want to do just the minimum and would prefer to do more, talk to an estate planning attorney about what more you can do.

Reference: Fidelity (March 27, 2017) “Estate planning must dos.”

Trusts might be more of a topic of political conversation today, thanks to the Trump family, than at any other time since President Theodore Roosevelt waged war against the trusts of the Gilded Age. That could be a good thing.

Trusts are not often a subject of much public discussion. They are important to estate planners, but as a matter of pressing national concern they rarely register.

The last time they were considered to be a matter of nightly discussion on the national news was during the first Roosevelt administration, when President Theodore Roosevelt resolved to bring the trusts to heel.

Today, trusts are back in the news because of the Trump administration and how members of President Trump’s family are using trusts to hold their assets.

A lot of digital ink has been spilled over whether the President’s family is using trusts in ethically appropriate ways.

One of the more recent examples of that comes from a New York Times article on Ivanka Trump’s trust titled “Despite a Trust, Ivanka Trump Still Wields Power Over Her Brand.”

While the press reporting has been mostly over the concerns about the ethical considerations of the Trump family trusts, there is another possible story.

What the Trumps are teaching us is that trusts can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They can be created for different purposes and give different people various levels of control over the assets in the trusts.

Whether or not you care about the ethical considerations of the Trump trusts, pay attention to the different things they do with their trusts. It might give you some ideas about what you can do with trusts that you can make part of your estate plan.

Reference: New York Times (March 20, 2017) “Despite a Trust, Ivanka Trump Still Wields Power Over Her Brand.”

Humans have long dreamed of visiting the planet Mars. However, to do so would cause aging problems for astronauts. However, we might be on the cusp of overcoming that by reversing the aging process itself.

One of the basic facts of human existence is that throughout our lives, our cells continuously divide.

Some cells die, but the division process ensures that new cells take the place of the dead ones. The division process is not perfect, however.

Each instance of cell division causes a small bit of deterioration in the cell and in the DNA of the cell. Over time, these bits of deterioration add up and the result is what we know as the aging process that we can see with our own eyes.

While not exactly constant, this deterioration from cell division occurs at a fixed enough rate that the maximum lifespan is the same for all humans. Scientists have been unable to change this rate of deterioration until now.

A way to reverse it might have been found, reported by the Daily Mail in “Would YOU choose to live forever? Age-reversing pill that NASA wants to give to astronauts on Mars will begin trials within six months.”

If the report is true and trials bear out, then scientists have found a drug that can reverse the deterioration from cell division that causes aging.

This would have potential benefits for astronauts because space travel is extremely dangerous.
Astronauts are exposed to radiation that causes the cell deterioration to increase.

NASA is interested in this drug as a possible way to protect astronauts on a trip to Mars.

If this drug actually works, it has profound implications for more than just space travelers. It would cause great changes for all elderly people and for all estate planners.

Reference: Daily Mail (March 23, 2017) “Would YOU choose to live forever? Age-reversing pill that NASA wants to give to astronauts on Mars will begin trials within six months.”

Many articles are written about what the Millennial generation wants and needs. Not enough articles are written about their need for estate plans.

Whatever field you are in, you have undoubtedly heard a lot of talk about how it relates to the Millennial generation. No one hears about it more than Millennials themselves. They like to discuss what their generation needs and their elders like to tell them about what they think they need.

With all of the talk about how Millennials live, behave and even vote, there is not much room left for talk about what will happen if they pass away.

It might seem premature to have those discussions, because Millennials are young and expect to live for a long time. However, many of them will pass away long before they think they will.

That means they need to think about their mortality and get estate plans established, as the Christian Science Monitor points out in “Millennials, don’t forget estate planning.”

One of the most important things estate planning can do for Millennials is to get them to think about what happens to their belongings and their children after they pass away. Estate planning focuses the mind on how the decisions we make, can have a long-term impact on our loved ones.

If done properly, estate planning also gets young people to think about their need to save money for retirement, emergencies and the possibility they might pass away while they have minor children.
If you are a Millennial, then seek out an estate planning attorney.

You should go ahead and get your first estate plan, just in case something does happen. That will get you started on making important plans, which is a good habit to get into.

Reference: Christian Science Monitor (March 7, 2017) “Millennials, don’t forget estate planning.”

In 2017 it is expected that the IRS will focus its auditing efforts on the wealthy, in order to get the most that they can out of their limited enforcement budget.

It used to be that the IRS was actually more likely to target middle class taxpayers for an audit than wealthy people. It is more difficult to audit the wealthy because they can afford to hire expert lawyers and accountants to fight the auditors.

However, years of cuts to the IRS budget have led to a change in tactics.

The IRS now prefers to target the wealthy for audits, so the agency gets the most bang for its buck. There is simply more money that the IRS can get by auditing the wealthy than by making sure middle class Americans have filed all of their taxes correctly.

This trend is expected to continue in 2017, according to Private Wealth in “This Year’s Audits Are Bad News For The Rich.”

The IRS is expected to go after common ways the wealthy often lower their tax bills and challenge them to prove that they have done everything correctly.

For example, a charitable deduction over a certain limit might trigger the IRS to send a letter demanding proof of the donation. Reporting that money was put into a 529 education savings plan over a certain amount, could also trigger an automatic letter as could a whole lot of other common practices.

It is important that wealthy people get together with their estate planning attorneys and accountants to make sure they have done everything correctly to lower their tax bills, if they want to avoid problems with the IRS.

Reference: Private Wealth (Feb. 28, 2017) “This Year’s Audits Are Bad News For The Rich.”

There is a common misconception that only certain types of people actually need wills. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You may have heard that not everyone needs a will. It is a common thought considering that the majority of American adults do not have wills. People often assume they do not need wills because they do not have very many assets and just want those assets to pass to their spouse and children. Some people think that wills are only really needed by the very wealthy and the very old.

Recently, the Norman Transcript tried to answer this misconception in “Wills: Who needs them?”

As it turns out, the answer to the question posed in the article’s title is “everyone.”

There is not a single category of adult who cannot benefit from having at least a will, although most people should have more estate planning documents than just a will. If you have minor children, then it is even more important that you have an estate plan to make sure your children are taken care of by someone you would approve of and that there are assets to provide for the children.

However, it is not just parents of minor children who need a will.

Anyone with any property, who wants to have a say in what happens to it after they pass away, needs to get a will.

Since you are most likely in the category of “everyone,” visit an estate planning attorney and get a will, if you do not already have one.

Reference: Norman Transcript (Feb. 24, 2017) “Wills: Who needs them?”

Most Americans do not have wills. They should get one, but they should not stop their estate planning with just a will.
The estate planning news has recently been full of stories about a new survey that showed that 58% of American adults do not have wills. The survey found that it was even worse for parents of minor children. Some 64% of them do not have wills. They have more reasons than anyone else have a will.

This has resulted in many articles about how Americans need to get wills and why their excuses for not getting them are misguided. That is all true.

Americans do need to get wills and they do need to stop making the same excuses, as the AARP points out in “Haven’t Done A Will Yet?”
However, estate planning should not stop with just a will.
A will is only one of the documents you can get by going to an experienced estate planning attorney. For example, you might learn that a trust is a better primary estate planning tool for you to use in your particular situation. Through an attorney, you can also get other important legal documents, including a health care power of attorney, a general durable power of attorney and a living will.
These and other legal documents will make sure that your financial affairs are managed properly, if you ever become unable to handle your own affairs.
Do get a will if you do not already have one. However, do not stop there. Make sure that you have a more thorough estate plan by consulting with a qualified estate planning attorney.
Reference: AARP (Feb. 24, 2017) “Haven’t Done A Will Yet?”