Estate Planning:
Authoring Your Family's Story

"The writing of a will is a serious and formal matter, and into one a man puts his deliberate and well-reflected intentions. This makes a will stupendously revealing, and to read one over is to come very close to the spirit of the man who wrote: to know his treasures, to understand his feeling toward men, and to measure his fitness for adventures among seraphic and angelic beings. The words a man desires to have read when he lies dumb, the gifts he leaves, the grace with which he gives, all these lay bare the spirit, the heart of disposition, as few other things can. For a will is that which is to live after one, and it is written knowing that no wound inflicted can be remedied, and no neglect repaired."

Editorial from the North American Review, circa 1910

Essential Planning

Responsibility: You have a right to dispose of your property at death according to your own wishes. If you don't exercise it, that right is ceded to the state. Furthermore, neglecting to prepare a Will or other estate plan will create significant challenges for your surviving family members.
Children: If you have minor children, you should choose their guardians in the event of your unexpected death, not a court.
Probate: Avoiding probate with a revocable living trust or with a combination of transfer on death, payable on death, and beneficiary designations can save your heirs considerable time and expense.

Tax Planning

Upcoming Changes: In 2023, the individual lifetime estate tax exclusion amount will be $12.92 million, or $25.84 million for a married couple. Absent changes by congress, the lifetime exclusion amounts will be reduced by about half on January 1, 2026.
Irrevocable Trusts: The size of an estate can be frozen by transferring property to an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust, Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust, Qualified Personal Residence Trust, or similar vehicles so that future appreciation is excluded from the taxable estate.
Planned Giving: For those who are charitably inclined or can't avoid estate taxes, planned giving in the form of outright gifts or charitable trusts can reduce or eliminate estate tax liability.

Incapacity Planning

Healthcare Power of Attorney: A healthcare power of attorney allows the signer to identify an agent to make their healthcare decisions in the event of the signer's incapacity.
Living Will: A living will expresses the signer's wishes regarding the use of life-sustaining measures in the event of an incurable condition.
General Power of Attorney: A general power of attorney identifies an agent who will carry out the signer's wishes regarding property and financial matters if the signer becomes mentally incapacitated.
Limited Power of Attorney: Limited powers of attorney are often combined with revocable trusts and allow agents only to transfer property into the trust to be managed by a successor trustee in the event of incapacity.

Gun Trusts

Acquisition and Possession: Trusts can be used to legally possess and transfer NFA and GCA firearms, and in the case of NFA firearms, a trust can also acquire them.
Lawfully Share NFA Firearms: Qualifying multiple trustees of a well-drafted gun trust enables sharing of NFA firearms that would otherwise be felonious with individual ownership.
Avoid Probate and Publicity: A gun trust eliminates the need for a probate to transfer firearms out of your estate after your death. Wills are public documents, so a gun trust also provides a unique level of privacy for your firearms legacy.

Qualitative Planning

In an age when women did not enjoy property rights, Edmund Burke paid his wife a profound compliment in his will of 1794, not only by giving her his entire estate, but by giving her the right to dispose of it as well:

"As my entirely beloved, Faithful & affectionate Wife did during the whole time in which I lived most happily with her take on her the charge & Management of my affairs...did conduct them with a patience and prudence which probably have no example, & thereby left my mind free to prosecute my publick duty or my Studies or to indulge in my relaxations or the cultivate my friends at my pleasure; so on my death I wish things to continue as substantially they have always been. I therefore by this my last and only Will devise, leave & bequeath to my entirely beloved and incomparable Wife, Jane Mary Burke, the whole real Estate of which I shall die seized, whether Lands, Rents, or Houses, in absolute Fee simple...to her sole uncontrolled possession & disposal, as her property in any manner which may seem proper to her to possess or to dispose of the same by her last will or otherwise; it being my intention that she may have as clear and uncontrolled a right and title thereto and therein as I possess myself as to the use, expenditure, sale or devise."

Last Words

It is difficult to overstate the power of posthumously spoken words, particularly on children and spouses. The Last Will and Testament presents perhaps the single best opportunity an individual ever has to make definitive statements about his or her beliefs, advice, joys, wishes, perspectives, sorrows, and more. At Lighthouse, we encourage and work with clients to maximize this unique opportunity.

Informed Bequests

Just as individuals have different personality types, individuals have different financial perspectives. Beneficiaries may be savers, spenders, risk takers, security seekers, or another financial type. Taking steps to better understand the financial tendencies of beneficiaries may change an estate plan entirely.

Family Inclusion