Retirement

Organizing for Tax (and Estate Planning) Season

It’s the start of a new year, which means tax season — and this year’s April 15th IRS filing deadline — is just around the corner. Soon you’ll be receiving tax forms such as your W-2 or 1099s, and you’ll start thinking about the life events that could affect your taxes in various ways.

This flurry of tax prep activity is the perfect opportunity to get your estate plan in order, too, and kill two birds with the proverbial stone.

Why? Because as you run down your list of “tax prep” questions, you will find that your answers could also impact your estate plan.

Some things to think about:

Did you get married or divorced? Did any of your children or grandchildren?
Did you welcome a child or grandchild into your family by birth or adoption?
Have any of your children or grandchildren reached the age of majority?
Have you dealt with illness or hospitalization? Have you incurred medical expenses?
Did you buy or sell a new property or any other major assets, like a vacation home?
Did you move to another state?
Did you buy, sell, open, or close a business?
Have you made any charitable donations?
Do you have any new life insurance or pension plans?

After you’ve answered these questions, get to work on gathering the corresponding paperwork. That might include deeds, policies, and contracts as well as bills and receipts. Having all of this information on hand can help you prepare your tax forms and whip your estate plan into shape.

Here’s how your tax-related changes can affect your estate planning.

If you already have an estate plan, your number one goal is to make sure everything still represents your wishes, taking into account the past year’s events. Maybe because of a change in circumstances, you need new or updated estate planning documents. Perhaps it’s time for an LLC and an update to your living trust now that you have a small business, or maybe you need to update beneficiaries because of births or deaths. Or, if you’ve had a change of heart about who should inherit from you, you also need to update your plan.

If you don’t have an estate plan, having this information at your fingertips sets you up for a productive conversation with your estate planning attorney. After reviewing your legacy goals, your lawyer can draw up key documents, such as:

A will. Among other things, this document can ensure that your wishes — and not the laws of the state — determine how to distribute your estate.
A revocable living trust. In addition to, or as an alternative to a will, you can establish a living trust, which allows your estate to bypass the potentially long and costly probate process upon your death, gives you extra privacy, and helps to avoid the potentially costly guardianship or conservatorship court process (sometimes called “living probate”) if you become incapacitated.
A living will. This document expresses your desires regarding life-sustaining medical treatment, if you become incapable of communicating your wishes.
A durable power of attorney. This appoints someone to step in and take over your financial affairs if you are unable to do so, reducing the possibility of hard feelings among loved ones or the need for court intervention.

It’s a new year, and new possibilities are in the air. As long as you’re getting started on your taxes, take a few extra moments to get the ball rolling on your estate planning as well. By getting organized in this way, you’ll be well on your way to making 2021 an amazing year.

As Anne Burrell once observed, “Organizing ahead of time makes the work more enjoyable. Chefs cut up the onions and have the ingredients lined up ahead of time and have them ready to go. When everything is organized you can clean as you go and it makes everything so much easier and fun.”

Are you ready to develop a comprehensive estate plan designed to achieve your goals and protect your family? Contact us or call our offices today at 832.408.0505 to get started.

Financial Firms Roll Out Form Aimed at Stopping Financial Elder Abuse

With cases of financial exploitation of the elderly on the rise, advisors who work with older clients are looking for ways to head off the abuse before it happens. Enter the “Emergency Contact Authorization Form,” a document in which clients can list a trusted person who should be contacted if an advisor suspects a client is starting to lose their mental capacity or, worse yet, being financially abused or scammed.

How Does an Emergency Contact Authorization Form Work?

The Emergency Contact Authorization Form is a document which allows you to identify someone your financial advisor can contact if your advisor becomes concerned about your ability to continue to manage your finances or believes you are being taken advantage of financially by a relative, friend, caregiver, or even a complete stranger.

The Emergency Contact Authorization Form does not take the place of your “Durable Power of Attorney,” which is a legal document in which you give a person you trust the authority to make financial decisions and carry out financial transactions on your behalf. Instead, the form allows you to designate an individual your advisor can contact to discuss concerns they have about your slipping mental capacity, unusual activity in your accounts, requests for transfers of large sums of money to an unknown person or a foreign bank account, and the like. This designated individual could be the same person as the agent named in your Durable Power of Attorney or some other trusted person in your life. The idea is that once your advisor makes your emergency contact aware of the issues, your contact can reach out to you to determine if the advisor’s concerns are legitimate.

What Should You Do?

Since your financial advisor is in a unique position to know your financial history (for instance, you take a trip to Europe every June, you have been helping your grandkids with their college tuition, you like to make your charitable donations in October to avoid the year-end rush), your advisor is also in a unique position to spot unusual activity and requests. Thus, when your advisor asks you fill out an “Emergency Contact Authorization Form,” carefully consider who you should name, discuss your choice with your advisor, complete the form, let the person you’ve chosen know that they have been designated, and give that person your advisor’s contact information.

Nonetheless, keep in mind that while an Emergency Contact Authorization Form is a good start, it will only work at the institution where it is on record. To insure that all of your financial accounts will continue to be managed and your bills will get paid if you become mentally incapacitated, you will need to sign a Durable Power of Attorney.

Please contact our office if you have any questions about Emergency Contact Authorization Forms, Durable Powers of Attorney, or if you suspect a family member or friend is being financially exploited or abused.

Caution: Your Traditional Asset Protection Plan is Set Up to Fail

You may be surprised to learn that not only has asset protection planning been around for a long time, but you have already engaged in it at some point during your life. In fact, you probably have one or more types of traditional asset protection planning in place at this very moment. The problem is in many cases the type of planning you have right now won’t be enough to protect you and your family.

What is Asset Protection Planning?

Asset protection planning is done to preserve and protect your property in advance of a claim, or the threat of a claim. In other words, this type of planning will not be effective to shield your property from an existing claim. Instead, it must be done long before there is even the hint of a claim.

The goals of asset protection planning are to provide an incentive for settling a claim, improve your bargaining position, offer options when a claim is asserted, and, ultimately, deter litigation.

What Is Traditional Asset Protection Planning, and Why Does It Often Fail?

There are several types of traditional asset protection planning that have been around for years. The most common is liability insurance – automobile, homeowners, umbrella, officers and directors, malpractice, and the like. You probably have at least one liability policy in place right now. Unfortunately, liability insurance may actually encourage a lawsuit since it is perceived as “easy money.” Aside from this, liability insurance often fails because the coverage is inadequate, the policies have extensive exclusions, or the carrier becomes insolvent.

Another common type of traditional asset protection planning is the use of a business entity, such as a corporation, to segregate business assets and liabilities from personal assets and liabilities. But while a corporation may shelter your personal assets from a lawsuit filed against the corporation, the opposite is not true – if you, as the shareholder of a corporation, are personally sued, your shares of stock in the corporation are not protected from a judgment entered against you. Of course, it is possible that if your corporation fails to observe certain formalities, then the “corporate veil” may be pierced and your personal assets will become vulnerable to a judgment entered against the corporation.

The final common type of traditional asset protection planning is established under state law and allows residents to exempt specific assets from the claims of creditors. This may include protection for property owned jointly by spouses (“tenancy by the entirety” ownership), a primary residence (“protected homestead”), the cash value of life insurance, investments held in a retirement account, and annuities. Nonetheless, these state exemptions are often subject to limitations, such as placing a cap on the value or land area of the protected homestead.

What Should You Do?

You may think that only wealthy people need to do advanced estate planning. The truth is anyone who has accumulated any amount of wealth can be sued for just about any reason. The only way to protect you and your family is to engage in more advanced forms of asset protection planning such as irrevocable trusts and sophisticated business structures.

This office can help you go beyond traditional asset protection planning by creating a comprehensive plan that will be custom-tailored to your family situation and financial status.

Call today and find out how to better protect your family.

How Does an IRA Fit Into Your Estate Plan?

When you think of IRAs, you probably think of retirement. But what happens to your IRA money after you’re gone? The answer depends on how you go about creating your estate plan and selecting beneficiaries, and you might be surprised to find out that your money could end up with the wrong people or cause an unexpected tax bill if you don’t take action ahead of time.

What your IRA means for your estate plan

Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) are often one of the biggest financial accounts you invest in over the course of your lifetime. When you’re working on your trust, will, and other documents contained in your estate plan, you have to consider all the “big stuff” like your IRA, your house, and your small business, to name a few. But unlike the way we may use some trusts for your family, IRAs have limited lifetime planning opportunities.

IRAs are also subject to income tax (yes – even one you inherit), even though the estate tax or death tax only applies to large estates over $11.4 million (this will change in the future). Leaving your IRA to a spouse is a common choice, but you can’t assume that your IRA will automatically be distributed to your surviving spouse. Your spouse must be explicitly named as its beneficiary through a proper beneficiary form.

Common IRA mistakes

One of the most common mistakes people make is letting their IRA beneficiary forms become out of date after a divorce, the birth of a child or grandchild, or another major life event that would alter their choice of beneficiary.

Another misstep to avoid is naming your own estate as the beneficiary of your IRA. If you name a beneficiary such as your spouse or child, they’ll be in the position to make that money grow into even more wealth over time by using the so-called “stretch out” feature of these accounts. If your own estate is the beneficiary, the money will be passed onto your loved ones in as little as five years (and possibly even faster), resulting in greatly accelerated (and often higher) taxation and a halt to the IRA’s potential growth over time. A bad result all around.

If you decide to leave your IRA to your minor children, you can cause a less-than-ideal situation by forgetting to appoint a guardian to oversee the IRA until your kids are old enough to inherit the IRA. Without a guardian, IRAs left to underage children can end up going to exes or other people you might not wish to share your wealth with. Better than a guardian, you can create an IRA trust to receive the IRA distributions, providing long-term financial support for your children or grandchildren and protection against meddlesome exes or others you don’t want to be involved in your children’s inheritance.

IRAs and estate and income taxes

It’s important to sit down with an estate planning attorney to determine how your IRA will be taxed and plan accordingly. For those with large estates, a life insurance policy and life insurance trust could be taken out to offset the cost of those estate taxes for your beneficiary. Remember, in addition to estate taxes for those with a large estate, your IRA distribution will also trigger an income tax for your recipient, regardless of the size of your estate. Roth IRAs are an exception to the income tax for beneficiaries. Whether a Roth IRA makes sense is something you can explore with us, your tax advisor, and your financial planner. Like many legal, tax, and financial strategies there are no one-size-fits-all solutions.

Because of the estate and income taxes that occur when IRAs are passed on to beneficiaries, they’re an excellent way to include some charitable giving as part of your estate plan. If you donate your IRA value to a charity, you’ll have a charitable contribution deduction as well as the ability to bypass loss of the IRAs value through income tax. If you are interested in benefiting your church or another charitable goal, it’s always an excellent idea to bring this up with us as your estate planning attorney and with your financial advisor as well, so we can help you build a plan that lets you give back.

Turning even a modest IRA into a huge advantage for your family

One way to make the most of an inherited IRA is to take a stretch-out approach. This strategy lets your beneficiary stretch the length of time over which they’ll be collecting money from the IRA, giving it more time to accrue growth without income taxes eating away at it. When this is paired with a retirement trust, the result can be a huge, long-term inheritance for your family, even if your IRA is only a modest amount. This is just one of several ways you can work with estate planning attorneys to make sure your loved ones get the most out of your hard-earned wealth for years to come.

Even though passing your IRA to your spouse or onto the next generation may seem relatively straightforward, there are plenty of pitfalls along the way without the guidance of an expert. Get in touch today by calling our office at 832.408.0505, and we’ll review your current IRA beneficiary forms to make sure everything is up to date and works to achieve your goals.

Estate Planning Considerations for Benefits Open Enrollment

The fall, generally late-October or early-November, is the time when employers send out summaries of employee benefits offered by the company and give employees the option to enroll in these benefits. These can generally include retirement plan options, health care, dental, vision, short and/or long-term disability, and life insurance coverage. Your employer may pay 100 percent of the premiums, split the costs with you, or you may have to pay all of the premiums yourself. Below are several considerations you should keep in mind once open enrollment begins.

Benefits Explained

When considering any retirement plan offered through your employer such as a 401(k), 403(b), or 457 plan, you will need to consider: what percentage of income you choose to contribute and whether the contribution must be made pre-tax, after-tax, or to a Roth plan (if available). How much you can contribute, and whether pre- or post-tax, depends on your specific financial circumstances. Remember to also consider any “matching” contributions your employer may make since these contributions can help improve your overall retirement savings.

Healthcare benefits may include the ability to enroll in a Health Savings Account (HSA), in addition to enrolling in the usual healthcare, vision, and/or dental coverage. HSAs allow plan participants to set funds aside, tax-free, for health care costs.

Employer-provided life and disability insurance coverage will provide your beneficiary with a stated amount of money if you die while employed by your employer or become disabled. The coverage generally expires when you no longer work for that employer.

Perhaps the most important thing to do during your employer’s open enrollment period is to review the employer-provided benefit package to determine what should remain and what should be changed. If you do not understand the options being provided to you, contact human resources right away for more information.

Beneficiary Designations

While you are reviewing your benefit package, you should consider your beneficiary elections or those who will inherit these assets upon your death or incapacity. A primary beneficiary is the first to inherit. Should he or she pass before you, or with you, assets would then go to any secondary beneficiary you have designated. These are often referred to as contingent beneficiaries.

Even if you have previously enrolled, you must review your beneficiary designations on your employer-provided benefits to ensure they are still how you want them. Benefits that may require a beneficiary designation are life insurance policies, retirement accounts, health savings accounts (HSA), as well as disability insurance.

If there are any new providers for your employer-sponsored benefits, this means that the insurance company has changed. Keep in mind that your previously chosen beneficiaries, and possibly coverage, may not have carried over. It is always better to review these documents, even if you are not planning any changes.

Estate Planning Concerns

If you are contemplating any changes to your beneficiaries, give us a call so we can ensure your beneficiary designations work as expected with your current estate plan or so we can properly prepare a plan that carries out your ultimate goals for you and your family. Once you have updated your beneficiaries, make sure to obtain written confirmation of this from your employer’s human resources department and share this information with us. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. We’re here to help.

Call today and find out how to better protect your family.

The More You Know: Reverse Mortgages & Estate Planning

You have likely seen several advertisements for reverse mortgages if you have spent any time watching television or surfing on the internet. The concept and sell is a simple one: as long as you own and live in your home, you can supplement your retirement income with a loan that you do not need to pay off. The trade-off when it comes to a reverse mortgage is that you are using your home’s equity to receive that extra retirement income. Even if a reverse mortgage is right for your circumstances, entering into a reverse mortgage is something that should be understood fully before signing any paperwork.

Reverse Mortgages Explained

How they work: Most reverse mortgages are federally insured and have several requirements including: (1) at least one borrower is aged 62 or older; (2) the home must be the primary residence; (3) the borrower must have financial resources to keep up with the home (taxes, insurance, maintenance); and (4) the borrower must own the home outright or have a low enough “regular” mortgage.

Impact on your estate plan: If you plan on leaving your home to your heirs, understand that a reverse mortgage will reduce the value they receive. Depending on when you pass away and how long the reverse mortgage was in place, your home’s equity may have been exhausted meaning that there is nothing of value to leave your heirs. In that case, your heirs may need to pay off or refinance the mortgage to keep the house.

Retirement income: The positive trade-off of a reverse mortgage is that you will have an additional source of retirement income, which can be received in several different ways including: (1) an upfront lump-sum, (2) a monthly payout, or (3) a line of credit. Each scenario has its own tax, borrowing costs, and home value implications. If you’re considering a reverse mortgage, talk to your financial advisor and estate planning attorney first, to make sure you select the best payout option for your circumstances.

Buyer beware: It is important to make sure you avoid scams that are pretending to be legitimate reverse mortgages. One way to help avoid being tricked is to make sure you work with a reputable provider. You should also make sure that a reverse mortgage is a good fit for your financial needs before signing any documents. Finally, consider the estate planning impact entering into a reverse mortgage may have on your intended wishes once you are gone.

The Implications of Reverse Mortgages

There are several factors to take into consideration when you are contemplating a reverse mortgage. Specifically, the effect it will have on your estate plan, the type of retirement income you are trying to obtain, scams to watch out for, and anything unique to your circumstances. There are several questions you should address before deciding whether or not a reverse mortgage is right for you. These include:

Can the life insurance you have in place pay off your reverse mortgage?
Will your reverse mortgage exceed your home’s value when you pass away?
What will happen to others living in the home if you die without paying off the loan?

Seek Advice

In addition to shopping around to find a reverse mortgage lender with terms that are most favorable to you, you should also determine whether a reverse mortgage is right for you and your needs. We can help you learn more about the options available to you and your family when it comes to your applying for a reverse mortgage and the impact it will have on your estate plan.

Retirement Planning for Business Owners

For many employees, saving for retirement is usually a matter of simply participating in their employer’s 401(k) plan and perhaps opening an IRA for some extra savings.

But, when you’re the owner of a business, planning for retirement requires proactivity and strategy. It’s not just the dizzying array of choices for retirement accounts, there’s also planning for the business itself. Who will run the business after your retirement? Additionally, your estate plan must integrate into your retirement and business transition strategy.

Owners of businesses (like employees and everyone else) want to make sure they will have enough money in retirement. Business owners recognize the value of their businesses, so they are often tempted to reinvest everything into the enterprise, thinking that will be their “retirement plan.” However, this might be a mistake.

Retirement Accounts for Business Owners

Rather than placing all your eggs in one basket, it makes sense to have some “backup” strategies in place. There are many retirement account options open to business owners. Although the number of options can make things confusing, a tax and financial professional can often quickly make a recommendation for you.

For example, you may consider opening a 401(k), SEP-IRA, SIMPLE, or pension plan. This can reduce your income taxes now, while simultaneously placing some of your wealth outside your business. From a financial perspective, these account are tax-deferred, so the investment growth avoids taxation until you retire, which greatly boosts returns. The “best” plan really depends on how much income your business earns, how stable your earnings are, how many employees you have, and how generous you want to be with those employees. You must consider how generous you’ll be with employees because the law requires most tax-deferred plans to be “fair” to all employees. For example, you can’t open a pension or 401(k) for yourself only and exclude all of your full-time employees. When making this decision, consider that many employees value being able to save for their retirement and your generosity may be repaid with harder work and loyalty from the employees.

Depending on how many employees you have, you may even consider “self-directed” investment options, which can allow you to invest some or all of your retirement funds into “alternative” investments, such as precious metals, private lending arrangements, real estate, other closely held businesses, etc. These self-directed accounts are not for everyone, but for the right person, they open up a wide world of investment opportunities. The tax rules surrounding self-directed tax-deferred accounts are very complex and penalties can be incredibly high. So, if you choose to do self-directed investments, always work with a qualified tax advisor.

Outside of your business, you can likely contribute to an IRA or a Roth IRA. This can allow you to add more money to your retirement basket, especially if you’ve maximized your 401(k), SEP, or SIMPLE plan. Like the other tax-deferred accounts, self-directed IRAs are also an option, opening up a broad world of investment options.

As a business owner, you likely have a great deal of control over your health insurance decisions. If you’re relatively young and healthy or otherwise an infrequent user of health care services, consider using a high deductible health plan (HDHP) and a health savings account (HSA) to add additional money to your savings. These plans let you set aside money in the HSA which can be invested in a manner similar to IRAs. At any time after you setup the account, you can withdraw your contributions and earnings, tax-free, to pay for qualified medical expenses. And, after you turn 65, the money can be used for whatever purpose you want, although income tax will need to be paid on the distributions.

Selling or Transferring the Business

Many business owners dream of a financially lucrative “exit” when a business is sold, taken public, or otherwise transferred at a significant profit for the owner. This does not happen by accident – a business owner must first create and sustain a profitable enterprise that can be sold. Then, legal and tax strategies must be coordinated to minimize the burdensome hit of taxes and avoid the common legal risks that can happen when businesses are sold. When a business is sold, the net proceeds can form a significant component of the owner’s retirement. When supplemented by one or more of the retirement accounts discussed above, this can be a great outcome for a business owner.

On the other hand, other businesses are “family” businesses where children or grandchildren will one day become owners. Like their counterparts who will sell their businesses, these business owners must also focus on creating and sustaining a profitable enterprise, but the source of retirement money is a little less clear. In these cases, clearly thinking through the transition plan to the next generation is essential. Although the business can be given to the next generation through a trust or outright, there are also transition options to allow for children, grandchildren, or even employees to gradually buy-out the owner, if the owner needs or wants to obtain a portion of the retirement nest egg from the business.

The Importance of Estate Planning

Regardless of which retirement accounts (401(k), SEP, SIMPLE, IRAs, HSAs) you select, it is wise to integrate them into your estate planning. You’ve probably already considered who you want to take over your business after you retire (perhaps a son or daughter or a sale to a third party). For your retirement accounts, an IRA trust is a special trust designed to maximize the financial benefit, minimize the income tax burden, and provide robust asset protection for your family. These trusts integrate with the rest of your comprehensive estate plan to fully protect your family, provide privacy, all while minimizing taxes and costs.

Leverage the Team Approach

Let us work with you, your business advisors or consultants, your tax advisor, and your financial advisor to develop a comprehensive retirement, business transition, and estate planning strategy. When we work collaboratively, we can focus on setting aside assets for retirement, saving as much tax possible, while freeing you to do what you do best – build your business!

Contact us or give us a call today so we can help you craft a retirement, business transition, and estate planning strategy.

Rewarding Your Employees by Giving Them the Business

Retiring from your business can a tough decision. To ensure that what you have built continues on, there needs to be a plan for succession. For some people, they have spent years grooming a child or other family member to take over, wanting the business to stay in the family. Others look to sell to a third party for a quick way out that will also give them a nest egg for their next phase of life. However, there is a third option–transferring the business to your employees. If you like the idea of transferring your business to long-time faithful employees who have contributed greatly to the company’s success over the years, below are a couple of options for you to consider.

Management Buyout

This type of transfer is a process, not an event. The management team comes together with the financing and arranges a deal with you to buy the assets and operations of the business. A management buyout has the benefit of being quicker and more confidential than a third party transaction, and the structure of the deal can be more flexible. There is also the added benefit that the legacy of the company will continue in the hands of those in management who have earned the opportunity to buy the business with his or her loyalty and hard work.

With this option, you may also be able to provide some continued service to the company as an officer and/or director. In addition, you may even be able to continue in some part of the business that you enjoy. And you may be able to keep some control over the company.

When considering this option, it is important that you consider the following:

How much cash, debt, and earn-out will be involved?
When will the transfer of control occur?
If management has little or no capital, where will they get the money for the buyout?

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)

An ESOP is a qualified plan under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Instead of selling directly to management, you are making the sale to the ESOP, which has been set up by the company. The ESOP can either attempt to get bank financing to purchase the stock from you, or you can take a note for the value of your shares and have the repayment taken care of internally. The employees become plan participants, similar to other employee incentive programs and are entitled to benefits at certain points as determined by the terms of the ESOP.

This option is similar to a management buyout, but with potentially valuable tax benefits. With an ESOP, you are selling stock in the company, not the assets, so the taxes are capital gains, not ordinary income taxes. Because of this distinction, there are planning techniques available that may help save on taxes with this transaction.

When reviewing this option, there are a few things to consider:

In order to repay the note, most (if not all) of the excess cash flow from the business may be needed, instead of using it to grow the company;
The company must set aside money to meet repurchase obligations on the ESOP when an employee retires, dies, becomes incapacitated or terminates his or her employment after vesting;
Stock in an ESOP is allocated based on payroll, so there are no extra management incentives.

Both management buyout and ESOPs are options that should be considered if you are looking to transfer your business to your employees. However, we are here to help you. Give us a call or contact us, we would be happy to discuss these options more and find a solution that best protects you and your legacy.