Retirement Consulting Services

Estate Planning, Wills, Trusts

Estate Planning

Estate planning isn’t just preparing for the inevitable.   It’s a measured approach that involves outlining goals and objectives, organizing financial affairs, ensuring you’ll have the care you want, distributing your assets wisely and communicating your intentions.   Although creating an estate plan may seem overwhelming, a little preparation and planning can go a long way and provide a lot of peace of mind.

One of the most important steps in developing your estate plan is assessing what you have in place today.   Creating an inventory of your current assets, liabilities, insurance policies and legal documents will better prepare you to perform regular reviews of your current net worth and estate plan.

A summary of your net worth often provides details regarding what assets you have (e.g., cash, retirement assets, corporate benefit plans and businesses), asset ownership and titling.   Creating a summary of your net worth is important for analyzing and evaluating your current financial status so you can create a plan to ensure your estate will be managed in a manner consistent with your goals and objectives.

Russo & Co will help you identify your estate planning needs to ensure you are covered for all situations.

Wills

Maintaining an up-to-date will is essential to ensure your estate plan remains aligned with your current goals and objectives.   To die without a will is to die intestate. If this occurs, the state will determine who should care for your minor children, and your assets will pass according to your state’s intestacy laws; this may not be consistent with your wishes.

Executing a valid will can solve this issue by letting you decide how your assets are to be distributed.   Your will can include provisions that create certain types of trusts upon your death.   Depending on the circumstances, these trusts may provide several benefits such as estate tax reduction, asset protection and additional control over future distributions.

Trusts

A revocable living trust (RLT) functions in much the same way as a will.   You appoint an individual to administer your assets and outline how your assets are to be distributed. Unlike a will that must be administered by the probate court, however, an RLT may enable your estate to avoid the probate process altogether along with the associated time and fees.   Since the probate court and any documents filed with it are open to the public, those wishing to maintain privacy may prefer an RLT.   Also with an RLT, certain provisions become effective upon signing and may assist in planning should you become incapacitated.

A revocable trust must be “funded” to work effectively.   This means you will need to retitle your assets from your individual name to your RLT.   All too often, individuals will establish a revocable trust document only to fall short when it comes to retitling assets in the name of the trust.    Assets that remain in your individual name will be subject to probate.   As such, it is important that you confirm with your advisors that your assets are titled appropriately after you establish your RLT.