Which one to choose?
Every day you protect and care for yourself and your family. If you want to protect and care for your family, their assets and their future if you lose your capacity or die, you need an effective estate plan.
Apart from signing a carefully considered will, power of attorney and guardianship appointment, an effective estate plan minimises the risks to your family’s wealth and/or maximises the taxation benefits for your family if you lose your capacity or die. That is what our effective estate planning service will do for you.
You will not be able to do those things by purchasing and signing an online will, power of attorney and guardianship appointment or a $100 document kit from the newsagent.
As you may not want or need all of the solutions provided by our effective estate planning service, the following guide is intended to help you make a decision about that.
If you want your estate planning to help you manage the risks that relate to the passing of wealth on death or to allow your beneficiaries to tax effectively use the wealth that you give to them, you want our standard effective estate planning service.
Risk management and our standard solution for your effective estate planning
Our standard effective estate planning service deals with risks 3 to 7 of the 7 risks to the passing of wealth on death. If you need a solution for risks 1 and 2, you will need to discuss that with us separately.
- Risk 1 – SPENDTHRIFT – what if an intended beneficiary is not good at managing money and you want to protect them against that?
- Risk 2 – SPECIAL NEED of a beneficiary – what if an intended beneficiary has a physical and/or intellectual disability that means they are not able to manage the wealth themselves?
- Risk 3 – SPECIAL NEED of a beneficiary – what if an intended beneficiary develops a drugs, alcohol, gambling or mental illness problem before they take control of their gift?
- Risk 4 – BANKRUPTCY of a beneficiary – what if your intended beneficiary is bankrupt when you die or becomes a bankrupt after you die having inherited assets from you?
- Risk 5 – BETRAYAL by surviving partner – will your surviving partner change their will after your death and disinherit your children or other intended beneficiary? Will they give the wealth away?
- Risk 6 – DIVORCE of a beneficiary
What if a relationship of a beneficiary breaks down (including a new relationship of your surviving partner after you die or a new relationship of a child)?
Will the assets that you leave them be exposed in a claim by their partner?
- Risk 7 – DEATH of a beneficiary
What if a beneficiary dies and their partner or children challenges their will as the deceased has not made adequate provision for their surviving partner or children?
Will the assets that you intend to leave your surviving partner or children be exposed in a claim by their partner or children?
Taxation and our standard solution for your effective estate planning
Our standard effective estate planning service also does the following things for you:
- Gives your surviving spouse and children or other intended beneficiary tax advantages after you die in the using of the personal wealth that you want to leave to them.
- Gives your surviving spouse and each child or other intended beneficiary the option after you die to access those tax advantages through a tax effective and flexible trust that can come into existence on your death.
- Gives your surviving spouse and each child or other intended beneficiary the option after you die to access those tax advantages through 2 tax effective and capital protected trusts that can come into existence on your death.
Further benefits of our standard solution for your effective estate planning
Our standard effective estate planning service also does these further things for you:
- Makes an allowance after you die that may be required to get equality between your children because during your life you have given more to one or more of them than to the others.
- Transfers control of your companies and trusts after you die to your surviving spouse and eventually to your children but so that a majority of your children cannot do the wrong thing by a minority of them, where decisions need to be made by unanimous resolutions.
- Staggers the timing for the passing of control after you die of the gifts you intend for your beneficiaries so that the beneficiaries do not get control of too much wealth too soon.
- Gives you the knowledge of what housekeeping needs to be done so that you can make sure that assets pass as you want, and you can maximise the risk and taxation benefits of using testamentary trusts after you die.
If you don’t want the above things from your estate planning, our simple and more cost-effective estate planning solution will do what you need.
If you are undecided about which of our services to use, as a guide, if you have between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 of personal wealth, the risk management and taxation benefits that form part of our standard fixed price effective estate planning service provide a very powerful estate planning solution. That is a guide only, as amounts of up to $1,000,000 can also do that. Those amounts include wealth that may arise from superannuation, including life insurance inside superannuation, and they include wealth that may arise from life insurance from outside of superannuation.
Do You need assistance with your effective estate planning?
If you need any assistance with your effective estate planning, please get in touch with us so that we can show you how to do it.
Disclaimer
The information in this article is general in nature and is not intended as legal advice. You should not do or fail to do anything in reliance on information in it. We do not accept any responsibility for any loss that you suffer if you do. You should seek professional advice before you do anything about the issues set out in this article.
