In my last post, I noted that, going in to your estate planning process, you need to answer three fundamental questions:

1. How many of the resources God has placed in your hands do you need in order to live your life as you believe you ought?
    
2. How many of the resources God has placed in your hands will benefit your heirs to help them live their lives as you would like them to be able to live?

   And, finally,

3. To what causes do you want to give what’s left over?

I said that, if you walk in without answers to those three questions, I can almost guarantee that your estate planning attorney will answer those questions for you . . . based on assumptions he or she will make in your behalf.

And what might those assumptions look like?

Here’s my experience. Most estate planning attorneys will assume you want to minimize taxes and, upon your death, pass everything you’ve saved over the course of your life–as much as possible–to your heirs: your children and grandchildren.

And beyond that?

“No assumptions.” –What else could you possibly want?

Well, let me raise some questions to see if even these assumptions are really what you want.

And in this post I hope simply to address the assumption of estate-transfer timing: the idea that your estate should pass to your heirs at your death. Read the rest of this entry »

Sarita took careful notes of what occurred at yesterday’s family meeting. I’m not going to walk through all the details. But I think a summary might be helpful. We actually covered a lot of territory. But what has happened in the last 24 hours since the meeting is perhaps the most surprising–shocking–result of all.

Now where will we head? Read the rest of this entry »

I met today with G_____, the guy who is helping us set our family legacy goals. He gave me a preliminary read-out on “where we’re headed” financially. Pretty mind-blowing. I’m having him revise his “assumptions” in a few spots, but no matter how the assumptions go, we are looking at a potentially truly HUGE fortune to deal with before Sarita and I die.

Assuming death dates of 2040 (when we’d both be in our mid-80s) and assuming several other things as G_____ did (for example, low single-digit yields and mid- to higher-single-digit growth in most investments), we are looking at a combined net worth of well over a hundred million dollars at the time of our death. Even if we give away 50% to 70% of our Adjusted Gross Income on an annual basis.

Frankly . . . honestly . . . this seems unbelievable. It is . . . just . . . beyond belief. Beyond imagination. It “can’t” be true.

And, honestly, I am unwilling to go along with some of his assumptions. For example, Read the rest of this entry »