Wisconsin Trusts & Estates Blog
Every estate plan we do starts with a free consultation. We get a lot done during those meetings, but they (honestly) don’t require much preparation. Here’s what to know about the agenda and how to prepare.
The first agenda item is always to cover the basics of what an estate plan does, talk about how the process works, and answer general questions.
Next is a chance to get to know a little bit about you.
We get a lot of client questions about protecting assets from the nursing home. It would be easy for us to sell an irrevocable trust to every prospective client who raises the issue (which, honestly, is a lot of them).
But we don’t. We spend time talking people out of them. Here’s why.
To understand why we don’t do irrevocable trusts, you first have to understand a little bit about how long term care is paid for in this country.
Everyone who reaches a certain age will receive Social Security and Medicare. The government calls these programs “entitlements,” meaning that all of us are entitled to them because we paid into the system with payroll taxes while we were working.
Our office routinely assists trustees in preparing accountings for ongoing trusts. This post explains what those accountings are and why they are important. It also gives some advice for trustees on making financial reporting as easy as possible.
An ongoing trust is an arrangement under which one person is managing money for another according to a governing document. The person managing the trust is the trustee, and the person they are managing for is the beneficiary. The governing document explains how the funds are to be used.
When we draft estate plans for parents of minor children, those plans typically include a trust fund for their children. This trust fund generally is structured so that a trustee selected by the parents (typically, a trusted family member) will manage those funds for the child until the child is old enough to do so themselves (perhaps at age 25-30).
When the parents’ assets include significant traditional IRAs or other pre-tax retirement accounts that would be included in this type of trust, the parents will also want to consider using a conduit trust to minimize taxes on IRA accounts that would be held by the trust. This article explains that option.
When people come to our office for estate planning, they often start by asking us whether they need a will or a trust.
The very short answer is, of course, that it depends. Wills and trusts are tools. The right tool for each client will depend on the client’s family situation, asset situation, and goals for their plan. Historically, about half of our plans have been will-based plans, and half trusts.
That being said, there are some common reasons to choose one tool over another. This post explains how each option works and the common reasons we might recommend one over another.
Choosing the right people to carry out a plan is often just as important as designing the plan correctly. We spend a great deal of time in our estate planning meetings discussing who to choose for a variety of key roles. These roles include financial roles, like estate administrator, and personal roles, like guardians for minor children and powers of attorney for health care.
This post discusses the various roles and the skill set necessary in each.
