Wills and Trusts

According to a 2024 survey only 32% of people have a will or trust.  

The other 68% leave it to their state to manage their estate and distribute their assets.   IMHO, this is a risky proposition.  The state will put the estate in probate, assign an administrator, assign a guardian if needed, and follow intestate rules.   This may be a costly, lengthy (due to conflicts with potential heirs), and different from the wishes of the decedent.  

Even if one has a will a trust, it needs to reviewed periodically to ensure it still current and follows one wishes.  Changes such as births, deaths, divorce, marriage, child becoming adult will affect wills and trusts.   Also, circumstances may change who one chooses to be executor, trustee, or guardian. Typically, it is recommended to review about every five years, to determine if laws or circumstances have changed.

A trust does require extra effort of titling assets in the name of the trust to be effective.  For example, a house has to owned by the John Doe Trust, not just John Doe.  However, a good estate plan will have a pour over will, which transfers assets to the trust before probate, and therefore, avoids probate.

Finally, I've noticed that trusts have become much more complex in the past few years given the changes in estate laws on exemptions from income tax.  IMHO, having a attorney at a larger estate planning law firm to account for all the latest nuances/changes is worth doing.  

For more on Strategies and Plans, check back every Monday for a new segment.

This is not financial nor estate planning advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2025 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Wills and Living Trusts Update Done

Earlier this year, we decided it was time to update our wills and trusts, since it had been over 13 years since we wrote them.  This month we completed the update.

The process was much easier to do this time for a couple reasons.  First, we were already familiar with the elements and knew the changes we wanted.  Second, we were able did all the discussion and revisions over e-mail, so no travel time was involved.

As it turns out, the main change was updating our successor trustees, successor executors and success attorneys in fact.  However, that required changing almost every document that we had previously written.  In addition, the content of some of the documents (e.g. health care power of attorney, living will, etc.) have changed slightly in content.

In the future, we will review every 5-10 years or when a life changing event (new beneficiaries, death of successors, or major financial change) happens.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Amending Returns for My Parents' Estate

As an executor of my parents' estate, one of my tasks has been to amend previous year state tax returns due to errors on state tax withholding documents.   One amended tax return was filed just within the three year time period allowed.  Unfortunately, the second amendment was outside of the three year time period and may be denied.

The only change in the amendment was to increase the amount of estimated tax paid to the correct amount.  Since my parents received a 100% refund, they should receive the additional amount.   Typcially, states will automatically correct for errors in estimated tax paid and send the correct refund amount.  But in this case, no correction is made.

I've asked the state to consider the specfics of this situation and grant the additional refund requested in the ammendments.   We'll learn of their decision in the next month.

For more on Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday for a new segment.

This is not financial or tax  advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Updating Wills and Living Trusts

In 1999, we created our first set of estate planning documents:  wills, revocable living trusts, health care power of attorney, and living wills.  The catalyst for doing these was a transfer to another country by my company.  We were advised that it was important to document our estate transfer wishes; otherwise, the transfer would follow the laws of the country in which we resided.  At the time, we were in our late 30s and early 40s and  married with no children.

Over the past 13+ years, there have been a few changes that may affect the documents from 1999.   First, the estate tax exemption amount has increased from $650,000 to $5.25 million.   Second, we have an eight year old daughter.  Third, my parents have both passed away.

Although some of these changes, e.g. having children and changes to the estate tax exemption, were accounted for in the general terms of our documents, it will be worthwhile to review our documents in the context of the specific changes that have happened.  

I expect that we will be making some slight modifications to the documents to reflect our current situation.  Also, I expect that how assets are transferred to our heirs will be executed differently based on the higher estate tax exemption.
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For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial or estate planning advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2013 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Insights from Being an Executor

Being an executor for my parents' estate had required me to learn a lot about the process of transferring assets, estate taxes and titling assets.  Much of this was new knowledge for me, but I probably won't be an executor again.  The new knowledge won't be wasted since I can apply it to my own assets and asset transfer.  Here are my learnings:

1. Live in a state with no estate tax.  My parents' state has no estate tax which reduced the complexity of their estate by one level.  The value of their estate was below the federal threshold of $5 million.  So no estate tax return was needed at the federal or state level.
2. Trust complications.  My assumption that assets in a revocable or family trust would be easier to transfer was not correct.  In most cases, it had the same level of difficulty.   In a few cases, assets in a trust were more difficult to transfer since court certification were required, or some financial institutions would not medallion guarantee signatures, even though I was a long time customer.
3. Over diversification.  Having multiple financial institution may be beneficial when alive, but significantly increases the work after death.  For example, each dividend reinvestment program, each mutual fund, each brokerage and each bank all require separate forms, with different requirement to transfer assets. Number of forms =  number of decedents X number of companies X number of heirs.

The experience has caused me to evaluate our residency options, trust management and diversification strategy. I'll post some thoughts on changes that we will make in a future post.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.


This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC