Wealth Planning Blog

Whether you are an expert in probate and have dealt with it on multiple occasions or a rookie, we can all agree on one thing: probate kind of sucks and should be and can be avoided. Let’s start with the basics: What is probate? Probate is a Court-guided process whereby a deceased individual’s financial affairs are wrapped up and the Court determines who the proper beneficiaries are of the deceased individual’s estate. The words “court-guided process” should automatically lead you to the accurate assumption that probate can be expensive both in time and money.

Over the years, estate and gift taxation has often been a see-saw of policy and tax rate changes. As administrations come and go, it seems so do the tax rates on estates and gifts. From 1 million to 5 million to unlimited millions, the administrations lead our planning to be based on a “best guess” of what’s coming next. Then, last year we finally got a “permanent law” that indexed the rates for inflation but otherwise left them predictable. Or, so some of us thought. 

“There is only one god and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: “Not today.” - George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones. Wouldn’t it be nice if we got the chance to actually say “not today” so we could spend that day getting all of our ducks in a row that we should have lined up yesterday? Or, maybe you’re someone like me that would then just spend that day doing every possible thing you could on your bucket list and hope your kids don’t get too mad at you for leaving their inheritance in an administrative mess!