Why People Fail To Plan

 

There is something wrong or unpatriotic in avoiding taxes for my heirs.

You don’t get it. Your politicians thrive on tax dollars they can spend to buy re-election. The growth of government is like a cancer. The best way to stop the cancer is to cut off some of the blood supply. Death taxes serve no social purpose that cannot be better served by your descendants or by other means. Your patriotic duty is to slow the growth of government in order to preserve individual liberties. And saving taxes legally is never wrong.

 

"Over and over again, the courts have said there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich and poor, and all do right, for nobody owes any duty to pay more tax than the law demands. Taxes are enforced extractions."

Judge Learned Hand

 

I will spend my estate down,

or it will fail to grow.

 

Our experience with clients is the exact opposite. If you have enough to have a taxed estate now, you are very unlikely to spend it down. In fact, it will likely grow. People who save enough to create a taxed estate do not change their saving habits as they age. “A tiger doesn’t change its stripes.” If the chance your estate will grow is better than even, you should plan now to avoid the later taxes. Many techniques cannot be done at the last minute.

 

I plan to start making larger gifts that

will reduce my estate.

 

We seldom see your gifting work for many reasons: Failure to make sufficient gifts; not enough gift beneficiaries; beneficiaries too young to receive outright gifts; estate growth that wipes out any reduction from gifts; hesitancy to give up cash from the estate in any meaningful amounts; delays in making gifts.

 

We have software that compares outright gifting with other planning techniques. Annual outright gifts rarely come close to the savings from other techniques. And planning can also avoid the risks of loss of gifted assets to the folly, creditors, and predators (divorcing spouses) of your loved ones.