You’ve spent your life building a legacy, and you want to make sure that legacy goes to your spouse, children, or other loved ones — not the IRS.
Estate taxes are higher than you might think, and the larger your estate, the more substantial these taxes become. The last thing you want is for your grieving loved ones to be overwhelmed by complex tax obligations.
With guidance from an experienced estate planning attorney, you can preserve more of your assets for the next generation — and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing your loved ones will be protected no matter what.
At Petrelli Previtera, LLC, our legacy planning attorneys have experience helping people like you navigate the complex world of estate planning and legacy law. Whether you need to create a simple will or delve into more advanced estate planning strategies, we’re here for you. Need Pennsylvania legacy planning? Book your consultation with us today.
Key Takeaways
Legacy Planning Is for Everyone
A common misconception is that legacy wealth planning and estate planning are only for the ultra-wealthy. Don’t fall for it! No matter how much or how little you have, it’s important to make sure you have your affairs in order before it’s time for your loved ones to collect their inheritance.
Another misconception is that you only need to worry about legacy and estate planning if you’re a senior or nearing retirement age. However, while no one likes to think about the unexpected happening, the truth is that no one can predict the future. If you have assets and someone you want to pass those assets on to, you can benefit from estate planning.
The Many Benefits of Legacy Planning
It’s easy to get so wrapped up in the present that you forget to plan for the future. And while it’s okay to leave certain things up to chance, your legacy is something to carefully plan for — and start planning early! Why is legacy planning important? It matters for more reasons than you might think.
You Decide Who Receives Your Assets (and How They’ll Receive Them)
Many estate plans include stipulations when specifying who will receive particular assets. For example, if you want to leave money to a grandchild to support their education, you can specify that their inheritance may only be directly sent from your trust to a college or university.
With certain estate legacy planning strategies, you can also ensure an inheritance is paid over time. For example, you might specify that your child can receive an inheritance only once they reach the age of 18 — and that even then, they can receive it only in monthly installments.
You Can Protect Your Assets Without Giving Up Control
Many financial legacy planning strategies involve creating a trust to protect your assets. However, doing so doesn’t have to mean you no longer have assets. With certain kinds of trusts, you can access your assets during your lifetime. The remainder will then be distributed to your heirs after death.
You Can Ensure Your Wishes Are Carried Out
Are there charitable causes you want to support? Is there a particular place you want to be buried? With legacy wills and estate planning, you can create orders to make sure certain kinds of wishes are carried out.
For instance, you might specify that you want your home to be sold and the proceeds donated to a particular charity. An estate plan can also include burial and funeral requests, including where you want a memorial service held, whether you want to be buried or cremated, and where you want to be buried.
You Can Arrange for Guardianship
If you have minor children, this is an especially critical part of legacy family planning. In many cases, a child’s other parent will take over guardianship in the event of your death. But what if the other parent passes away or is otherwise unable to care for your children?
Losing a parent is always difficult, but for children who still need a guardian, it can be scary and disorienting. With a detailed estate plan, you’ll be assured that no matter what happens, your children will be in good hands.
You Can Keep Taxes to a Minimum
Unfortunately, taxes are a nearly inevitable part of every estate plan. Tax codes around estates are notoriously complicated, but the benefit of that complexity is that a skilled estate planning lawyer can develop a customized tax strategy.
A legacy planning attorney can greatly reduce the amount of your estate that goes toward taxes, preserving more of your wealth for your loved ones.
You Might Be Able to Avoid Probate
Probate is a formal, legal process that oversees the distribution of your assets. It can be extremely drawn-out and stressful, and when your loved ones are already grieving, it can be overwhelming.
The relationship between legacy planning and probate is a complex one. A well-executed estate plan can’t always guarantee that your loved ones will be able to avoid probate entirely, but it can make the probate process far less likely to become a problem.
You Can Arrange for Long-Term Care
An estate plan’s directives don’t have to be limited to the distribution of your assets after death. Legacy estate planning services can also establish plans for long-term care (and payment for that care) ahead of time.
Your Loved Ones Will Have Financial Protection
This is one of the best-known and most important aspects of personal legacy planning. If you have assets, a life insurance policy, or both, you want them to give your loved ones financial security — especially when they’re grieving your loss. With an estate plan, you can allocate those assets to loved ones while specifying how and when they receive them.
Legacy Planning Is an Ongoing Process
If you already have an estate plan in place, you might think that there are no more steps to take. However, estate plans are essentially “living” documents — as your family and financial situations change, they should change, too. If you’ve experienced any of these circumstances since you last changed your estate plan, it may be time to revisit it:
- A new marriage
- A divorce
- The birth of a child or grandchild
- A change in the value of your assets
- Receiving a new inheritance
- Retirement
- A move to another state
- A child or grandchild becoming a legal adult
- The death of a child, spouse, or other beneficiary
Even if you established your legacy plan with another law firm, Petrelli Previtera, LLC can help you update it to ensure it meets your current needs.
Legal Strategies for Estate Planning: Safeguarding Your Financial Legacy
The legal team at Petrelli Previtera, LLC has helped countless clients plan their legacies. We understand that each person has unique goals and a unique financial situation, so we’re committed to developing a custom-tailored estate plan for each one.
For many, it’s important to ensure their assets go to the right people after death. However, they also want to make sure they can access those assets during their lifetimes.
Fortunately, many different legacy estate planning strategies can preserve your control over your assets while still establishing who will inherit them after your death. Our legacy planning services include a range of these advanced estate planning techniques.
Charitable Remainder Trusts
A legacy estate planning service doesn’t only help your loved ones avoid estate taxes. It can also help you reduce your tax burden during your lifetime. If you want to donate assets to a particular charity after death, a charitable remainder trust may be the right choice.
With this strategy, you put your assets into a trust. The trust pays you a certain amount each month. After your death, whatever remains in the trust will be donated to the charity you chose. You get to claim a charitable tax deduction during your lifetime, and the trust can liquidate appreciated stock without incurring capital gains tax.
Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT)
This is a great legacy tax and financial planning strategy if you own investment properties or a business. You put those properties into a trust, and the trust pays you an annual sum. After a set amount of time, the trust passes to your heirs free of gift tax or estate tax.
Qualified Personal Residence Trust
This strategy lets you save on estate taxes when passing your home on to your loved ones. You transfer the ownership of the home to a trust for a certain number of years. When the home is eventually passed down, your heirs will have to pay a gift tax, but it’s far less than the estate tax they would have to pay without the trust.
Grandchildren’s Trusts
With legacy trusts and estate planning strategies, you often have the ability to stipulate that an inheritance should be distributed over time. This is especially important when leaving money to grandchildren or other very young people.
When you make gifts or leave inheritances through a trust, you can ensure that your younger loved ones don’t receive large lump sums they are too young to handle. If the trust legally qualifies, the money can be given tax-free.
Generation-Skipping and Dynasty Trusts
Life and legacy planning becomes more complex when you have very substantial assets. If you want to leave money to present or future grandchildren and their descendants, you might opt to start a generation-skipping trust. If that trust goes across more than two generations, it becomes what’s known as a “dynasty trust.”
These are just a few of the many possible legacy planning solutions you can use. Tell us your goals, and our attorneys can help you find the best strategy.
Plan Your Legacy Today
Too many people put off legacy planning indefinitely. No one likes to think of their own death, and often, the stresses of daily life seem to be more important to attend to. Unfortunately, many of these people never get around to planning their legacies, and they leave their loved ones to deal with a tangle of properties, accounts, assets, and tax laws.
Don’t be one of these people! At Petrelli Previtera, LLC, our Pennsylvania legacy planning lawyers can guide you through the often-confusing process of legacy planning one step at a time.
If you need to refresh an existing estate plan or are creating one for the first time, get in touch with us. We have Pennsylvania offices conveniently located in Abington, Doylestown, Norristown, Philadelphia, and West Chester. Give our office a call at 866-465-5395 or schedule your initial consultation online today.