We never want to think of our own mortality. But before the time comes, you might want to make sure your loved ones are taken care of and that your legacy is fulfilled. Part of this is done through estate planning. But this can be very complex, especially considering new estate tax laws.
Here’s a guide to help you establish and future-proof your estate plan.
Assemble Your ‘A Team’
The process of estate planning involves some key roles. You’re going to want to make sure the best-of-the-best fill those shoes.
You can start by working with a qualified estate-planning attorney. Make sure they’re experienced and be aware of how many estates they’ve settled. It’s also important to know the average asset level of clients they work with. Perhaps most importantly, though, is to make sure they are experienced in working with a family in your situation. Maybe you have a special needs child, or you have a divorced family. These details matter.
Next, you’ll need to choose an executor. This is the person responsible for gathering your assets and distributing them as you wish. This can essentially be anyone of your choosing. But it should be an experienced professional such as a bank trust officer.
You’ll also need someone represented by your durable or financial power of attorney document. This person would take legal authority to handle your financial matters should you become incapacitated or unable to handle your financial affairs on your own for any reason.
Plus, you should designate a power of attorney for health care, who would handle your health matters should you be unable to carry this out on your own.
And though it may be hard to think about, you may want to designate a guardian to look after your children should you and your spouse pass away while they’re minors. In this case, you also may want to consider two guardians: one to physically look after the children and another to address their financial affairs.
All of these individuals should be experienced, competent and, above all, people you trust.
Review Beneficiaries
When you open an account like an individual retirement account (IRA), you designate a beneficiary. It’s important to note that this designation would supersede anything in your will. So it’s important to review designated beneficiaries and make sure you are still comfortable with that arrangement. Here’s a checklist of where you would want to look:
- insurance policies
- 401(k)
- Roth 401(k)
- IRA
- Roth IRA
- brokerage accounts
- savings accounts
Gather Your Assets and Liabilities
Estate planning means taking a magnifying glass to everything you possess, from physical property like a home to assets in cyberspace like cryptocurrency.
To get started, here’s a checklist:
- residential property
- vehicles
- jewelry
- fine art
- business interests
- financial accounts
- digital assets
But while gathering what you own is important, so is taking stock of what you owe. Your estate-planning attorney should be able to provide you with worksheets to help track your assets and liabilities. But it could help to do this on your own ahead of time.
Future-Proof Your Estate Plan
What you own goes far beyond monetary value. You may have precious family photos on social media that you want preserved. With that said, a lot of our lives are spent online in an increasingly digitized world. You may have a collection of media that exists entirely on the web or in the cloud. So you want to make sure your digital life is part of your estate plan as well. This is where digital estate planning comes in. To start, you may want to get a picture of all your digital assets. Here’s a quick checklist:
- social media profiles
- emails
- digital media like movies, pictures, and books
- intellectual property
- important digital files
Many of your digital assets would be protected by password walls. So you may want to use a reliable password manager to gather these all together. Provide the log-in info for the password manager to your executor and power of attorney so they have easy access.
Draft Your Will
Your will should clearly outline how your assets would be distributed upon your death and to whom. Without it, probate laws would determine how your assets are passed on, and the distribution may not be something you’d agree with. So it’s important to make sure you have a solid will. Think hard about this one. You want to make sure your assets are going exactly where you want them to go.
The good thing is you can update your will over time. And that’s something you should keep in mind. Your will and overall estate plan is a living document. You should review it throughout your lifetime to make any necessary changes.
Understand Estate Tax Laws
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by President Donald Trump permanently increases the gift and estate tax exemption to $15 million ($30 million for married couples).
This means the government would levy taxes on transferred assets that exceed that amount after death.
But the larger threshold gives affluent families the opportunity to move larger amounts of assets and their appreciation out of their taxable estate now through mass gifting.
Create an Irrevocable Trust
An irrevocable trust is a legal arrangement that holds assets on behalf of a beneficiary based on rules set by the grantor. A trust can hold various assets like cash, investments and physical property. These assets become property of the trust and, thus, leave your taxable estate.
But with an irrevocable trust, you permanently give up rights to the assets transferred and you can’t take them back. Plus, you can’t change beneficiaries without their approval.
Nonetheless, there are other types of trusts you may want to consider for estate planning purposes.
The Bottom Line
Before you embark on your estate planning journey, hire a qualified attorney familiar with these matters. This individual will walk you through the process. But it’s important to do some tasks ahead of time like gathering all your assets and liabilities, and drafting your will as well as a digital estate plan. You’ll also want to designate trustworthy and competent individuals as executor, power of attorney, and power of attorney for health care.
The Epoch Times copyright © 2025. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times holds no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided.
