What’s the Latest on Multiple Wills of Queen of Soul?

A Michigan jury recently determined that a handwritten document by Soul Superstar Aretha Franklin found on her couch after her 2018 death was a valid will. It was a critical turn in a dispute that had turned her sons against each other.

CBS News’ recent article, “Expensive court fight over Aretha Franklin’s will provides cautionary tale,” warns that the fight could have been avoided if Franklin had had a formal will drafted by an experienced attorney.

An experienced estate planning attorney could have made certain that it specified what should become of her money, property and other possessions — and that it would hold up in court.

This lesson also applies to other families. You should prepare your estate plan, so the children won’t fight after you die. Estate attorneys may recommend that you establish a revocable trust. This can keep the estate out of probate court.

After the singer died, her family thought she had no will. Under Michigan law, her assets would have been divided equally among her four sons. The sons unanimously selected a cousin as the estate’s personal representative, a position similar to that of an executor. However, months later, in May 2019, two handwritten documents were found at Franklin’s home in suburban Detroit — one in a locked cabinet, the other in a spiral notebook in the couch — which immediately divided the singer’s children. Neither document was prepared by a lawyer, and neither lists witnesses, though the first one was notarized. Both had detailed lists of assets.

Aretha put her family through five years of expensive litigation that could have been avoided.

She was working with an attorney about a formal will from 2016-18, but nothing was finalized at her death.

“There were a lot of open questions and we never resolved those open questions,” lawyer Henry Grix testified during the long-running litigation. “She was quite ill and perhaps unable, really, to reach final intentions.”

Do-it-yourself software is inexpensive. However, these programs can’t customize a will to a family’s unique circumstances and foresee all the potential pitfalls like a good attorney could. Don’t be pennywise and pound foolish. Work with an experienced estate planning attorney.

Reference: CBS News (July 12, 2023) “Expensive court fight over Aretha Franklin’s will provides cautionary tale”

Which Is the Best to Way to Transfer Wealth, Trusts or Wills?

Even when everyone in the family grows up and gets along, settling an estate can bring back old sibling battles. It is even more likely if there are large sums of money or valuable property at stake. This makes having a well-prepared estate plan necessary and making those plans clear to family members long before they are needed.

A recent article from The Motley Fool, “Living Trust vs. Will: Which Is The Best Way to Pass Inheritance to Your Family?” explores how best to prepare for the future.

A will, also known as a last will and testament, instructs the executor of your estate how to distribute assets to heirs after your death.

A trust allows you to transfer assets at any time—including while you are still living—however you want, whenever you want. A trustee is the person named in the trust who is responsible for administering the trust. You can protect your children from mismanaging their inheritance with a good trustee and a properly prepared trust.

One of the biggest differences between a will and a trust is that the will takes effect only after you die.It also usually requires review and approval by a probate court. A trust is funded while you are living and does not go through the probate process.

Many people use both a will and a trust for their estate plans.

The will is best created by an experienced estate planning attorney who knows the estate and tax laws of your state. Wills are also used to name your executor and appoint a guardian for minor children. If your children are young, you want this in your will. Remember that when wills go through probate, they become part of the public record. As a result, anyone who wants to can read your will.

Trusts fall into two main categories—revocable and irrevocable. The difference is as it sounds; the grantor can change the revocable trust after it’s created. Irrevocable trusts can’t be changed once established, although some states permit what is known as “decanting”—pouring the contents from one trust into another. Your estate planning attorney will know if your state permits this.

One benefit of a trust is privacy. The trust doesn’t go through probate, so no one but the trustee and, depending on the trust, the beneficiaries, know what is in it. Assets in the trust are also distributed as directed in the trust, so they go directly to beneficiaries. There is no court involvement.

In addition, when assets are placed in the trust, they are owned by the trust and not the person who created the trust (the grantor).

Whether you are beginning to plan your estate or updating an existing plan, your estate planning attorney will help you understand your options, so you can create a plan best suited for you and your family.

Reference: The Motley Fool (July 7, 2023) “Living Trust vs. Will: Which Is The Best Way to Pass Inheritance to Your Family?”

Who Gets My Bank Account When I Die?

Investopedia’s recent article, “What Happens to Your Bank Account After Death?” details the common ways you can set up your account to make things as simple as possible after your passing and what will happen if you don’t set up anything beforehand.

The easiest way to pass your bank account on to your heirs after your passing is to make sure you name payable-on-death (POD) or transfer-on-death (TOD) beneficiaries on your accounts. This ensures that they won’t have to go through probate. When you name a payable-on-death beneficiary, they won’t have direct access to your money until you die. You can change the named payable-on-death beneficiary at any time.

A bank will frequently freeze an account upon notification of the holder’s death to prevent fraud. Therefore, it’s important to have a payable on death (POD) beneficiary designated to ensure that your loved ones can access your money if you pass away.

Adding account holders to your bank accounts can make things easier for your heirs after your passing. However, it can have downsides while you are living. Note that most joint account holders are considered joint tenants with rights of survivorship (JTWROS). That means the account passes to the survivor(s) when an account holder dies.

The other people on your account may also be subject to gift tax and can withdraw funds from the account whether or not you want them to. The assets in the account are legally considered theirs to qualify for government programs or if they have a creditor with a judgment against them.

If you don’t set up anything before your passing, your accounts will go to probate and be distributed according to state probate law. Without a will, an executor will be appointed who will be responsible for paying off any creditors of the deceased. The remaining money will be distributed to the spouse and children of the decedent.

However, if the deceased has named a payable-on-death (POD) beneficiary for the account, they will get access to it immediately. They simply need to show the bank a death certificate and identification.

If you have a simple estate with no assets besides a bank account, adding a payable-on-death beneficiary to your account(s) is the easiest way to avoid probate. Ask an experienced estate planning attorney for assistance.

Reference: Investopedia (June 13, 2023) “What Happens to Your Bank Account After Death?”

Don’t Leave Grandchildren a Tax Bill

Changes in tax laws have made estate planning a top priority when it comes to leaving retirement savings accounts to heirs, says a recent article from The Wall Street Journal, “How to Leave Grandkids Your Retirement Savings—and Not a Huge Tax Bill.”

Heirs who are not spouses have to empty inherited retirement accounts within 10 years of the death of the original owners, with few exceptions. Before the law changed in 2020, heirs had decades to do this, enjoying tax-free growth.

For many families, these changes require drawing up new trusts and changing estate plans to maximize the family’s after-tax wealth. Some also make a series of Roth conversions or significant generation-skipping lifetime gifts.

How much is at stake? Americans held $12.5 trillion in IRAs as of March 31, and about half of households headed by someone 65 and older have an IRA.

A gradual conversion from traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs makes sense for many, so children and grandchildren can inherit the money tax-free. The taxes are being paid upfront. Once the money is in the Roth, it grows tax-free, and heirs can take it out tax-free when they inherit.

If the inheritance occurs during the grandchildren’s or parents’ highest earning years, they can cause a massive tax bill. Minor grandchildren might need to file a tax return to report the IRA payout, and the income could be taxed at the parent’s rate.

For many grandparents, the solution is to make lifetime gifts to grandchildren as soon as they are born, from paying for diapers and preschool to setting up 529 college savings plans and having trusts created and funded to save estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes.

Leaving an IRA outright to grandchildren, even with the ten-year payout period, is usually not a good idea. They may see the inheritance as a windfall and go through it quickly. Having conversations about your intention for their use of the money is a good idea. However, it’s not legally binding.

Inherited IRAs also come with administrative headaches. You can’t convert an inherited traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, add money to an inherited IRA, or combine an inherited IRA with your own IRA.

Leaving an IRA in a trust may seem complicated. However, it’s a worthwhile move if there are concerns about how parents or grandchildren might handle an inheritance. A trustee would distribute the money based on the terms set in the trust. This prevents the scenario of a young adult inheriting more money than they’ll know what to do with.

Your estate planning attorney will be able to help your family minimize the tax impact of inheritance with a comprehensive plan.

Reference: The Wall Street Journal (July 9, 2023) “How to Leave Grandkids Your Retirement Savings—and Not a Huge Tax Bill”

Should My Kids Get an Equal Inheritance?

Equal inheritances have become less common. According to research, the proportion of parents over 50 who reported treating children unequally in their wills rose from 16% to almost 35% between 1995 and 2010.

The News and Record’s recent article, “When Leaving an Unequal Inheritance Makes Sense,” says that leaving unequal inheritances can be risky. A third of Americans say their financial stability depends on receiving an inheritance, and the stakes can be high for siblings — and their parents.

It may be easier to divide your assets evenly among your beneficiaries. Still, you might feel strongly about helping an adult child who’s struggling or want to leave less to a child you’ve already financially supported. One of the most common reasons people leave unequal inheritances is to address uncompensated caregiving from an adult child. A 2018 Merrill Lynch and Age Wave study found that two-thirds of the respondents said that children who have provided care to them in their later years should receive a larger inheritance than those who didn’t.

When a child has had to compromise their lifestyle to care for a parent — such as giving up a job or working part-time instead of full-time — the parent understands the sacrifice and often wants to favor that child with the inheritance. And the Merrill Lynch and Age Wave study says many parents also feel that children who need the money most should get more. That may mean leaving less to relatively well-off kids.

While unequal inheritances are frequently designed to reward children for their help or to ensure kids are left in the best financial condition possible, fights can flare up if one sibling feels that another sibling didn’t “earn” the extra inheritance. Here are a few things that may help reduce any friction:

Explain your wishes. Explain what you’ve decided to leave your heirs and why before it’s too late. Include an estate planning attorney to be sure everyone understands the tax implications and liabilities associated with the assets.
Add a deterrent. Despite your explanation, your heirs may still not agree with your choices and decide to contest the will in probate court. You can discourage this by adding a no-contest clause stipulating, for instance, that anyone who contests the will and loses forfeits the right to any inheritance.
Invest in meaningful relationships. Financial need can certainly motivate a person to contest a parent’s will in court. However, emotional baggage can also have an effect. Sibling resentments can surface at the end of a parent’s life, and a larger inheritance may look like a preference for a “favored” child. The more secure children feel in their relationships with their parents, the more likely they will accept the decision to leave an unequal inheritance.

Reference: News and Record (April 13, 2023) “When Leaving an Unequal Inheritance Makes Sense”

What Should We Do with an Inherited Home?

Inheriting a house with siblings can raise some financial issues about what it means for each of you. Let’s look at some options for handling this situation and possible responses to any differences of opinion that may emerge.

NASDAQ’s recent article, “What to Do When Inheriting a House With Siblings,” says that consulting with an estate planning attorney can help untangle some of the sticky issues that can arise when a home is left to multiple people.

Several siblings can inherit the same piece of property, and when siblings inherit a home, everyone’s typically entitled to an equal share of the property. So, there are a few essential things you might need to do, including:

Putting the utility services in your or your siblings’ names;
Contacting the post office to have your parents’ mail forwarded to your address;
Going through your parents’ belongings;
Taking care of any necessary maintenance or repairs;
Updating payment information for the home’s insurance policy; and
Paying any outstanding charges associated with the home, such as HOA fees or property taxes.

After that, here’s what you might consider doing with the inherited property.

Sell. Selling is an obvious choice if neither you nor your siblings plan to live in it. Sell the home and divide the proceeds.

Buyout. If a sibling is reluctant to sell or your parents’ wills bar you from selling, you could try to work out a buyout. In that scenario, one sibling would maintain ownership of the home and pay the others an amount equal to what their share of the home is worth. Getting the home professionally appraised to determine its value is a good idea.

Renting. A third option is to rent out the home. The upside of this option is collectively sharing in the rental income from the property. This might make sense if you think you might revisit the issue of selling or a buyout in the future or if you’re obligated to keep the home in the family. If you go this route, you and your siblings will need to decide how maintenance and rent collection will be handled, and it might make sense to agree to hire a property management company to help.

Reference: NASDAQ (April 12, 2023) “What to Do When Inheriting a House With Siblings”

What Is Best Method to Set Up Digital Estate Plan?

We now live in a digital world. As a result, many things we hold dear aren’t physical. What happens to our digital assets when we die? That’s where digital estate planning comes in, explains Kiplinger’s recent article, “How to Tackle Digital Estate Planning in Four Easy Steps.”

Let’s look at the article’s four steps:

First, some digital service providers have a tool or service to designate what happens to all of your assets after you pass away. One example is Yahoo’s inactive account manager, which can be used to designate a person to guide what happens to your digital assets.
If there isn’t this type of tool, the owners’ legal documents should dictate what should be done with the asset.
Next, if these two scenarios don’t help, the service provider’s terms of service should say how the executor can access those accounts.
Before making a digital estate plan, you must understand what is included in your digital estate. Your digital estate includes all of your electronic and virtual accounts and assets, such as:

Social media accounts
Email accounts
E-commerce and online store accounts
Photos saved in the cloud
Cryptocurrency keys
Cellphone apps
Domain names, blogs, and domains
Text, graphic and audio files
Other intellectual property
Loyalty program benefits, like credit card perks
Online banking accounts; and
Gaming accounts.

Note that electronic bank accounts are also considered digital assets. However, the money in the bank account isn’t a digital asset. The same is true for cryptocurrency. The crypto account access platform, like Coinbase, is a digital asset. However, the actual cryptocurrency, such as Ethereum or Bitcoin, isn’t a digital asset.

Reference: Kiplinger’s recent article entitled, “How to Tackle Digital Estate Planning in Four Easy Steps”

What Happens to Digital Assets on Death?

You’ve probably thought about who will inherit your home, your great-grandmother’s jewelry collection and your collection of superhero comics. However,what about your digital assets, asks a recent article from Coast Reporter, “Make sure your estate plan considers your digital assets.”

Digital assets may have significant value. Digital assets include cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), domain names, digital photos, digital rights to literary content, musical compositions, blog content, online video channels where your content is generating revenue, online gaming, digital online betting accounts, PayPal accounts or even prepaid subscriptions to online content or goods and services.

If your estate plan hasn’t adequately accounted for these assets, your heirs may be unable to access them. Do you and your executor even know what digital assets you own?

Having a list of your digital assets is a start. However, this doesn’t mean your executor can access the assets after your death. Photos and videos stored online may be inaccessible, social media accounts may stay online forever and heirs might not receive money or other assets you intended them to have.

The first hurdle is knowing the passwords for your accounts. Some can be accessed by cybersecurity professionals, like breaking into your phone or a laptop. However, others, like cryptocurrency keys, could be lost forever. Unless you’ve given explicit authorization to someone to access your accounts, they could violate data privacy laws, a criminal offense in most states.

Here’s a game plan for your digital assets and estate plan:

Document digital assets. Know what you own and understand that there’s a difference between owning a digital asset and owning a non-transferable license to use the asset.

Back up your digital assets. Ensure that all online documents, data and assets are backed up to the cloud and store them on a local computer or external hard drive, so your family can access them with fewer obstacles.

Leave digital assets to your spouse. This will avoid the assets being taxed and give the surviving spouse time to plan for the tax liabilities upon their death with an experienced estate planning attorney.

Provide authorization in your will. Update your will so your executor can bypass, reset or recover passwords. If your digital assets are significant enough, talk with your estate planning attorney about having a separate will to deal with digital assets and name an executor knowledgeable about digital assets for the second will.

Check-in regularly. Digital assets are still new for most people, so speak with your estate planning attorney to be sure your wills and powers of attorney reflect any changes in the law or your digital assets.

Reference: Coast Reporter (June 21, 2023) “Make sure your estate plan considers your digital assets”

Ever Wonder How the Very, Very Rich Pass Wealth to Their Children?

When making plans to pass assets on to family members, it’s important to consider how estate planning can help manage the taxes associated with inheritances, says a recent article, “Here’s How the Ultra Rich Pass Wealth Tax Free to Their Heirs” from yahoo! finance. The very rich have used many strategies to pass on wealth with limited or no taxes owed, and some of these strategies can be used by regular people too.

The annual gift tax exclusion. Transferring wealth during your lifetime, rather than after your death, allows you to gift any number of people up to $17,000 each in a single year without incurring a taxable gift and having no impact on your estate and gift tax exemption. Married couples may give up to $34,000. People often use this annual exclusion for cash gifts and deposits into 529 education savings plans. These plans permit “frontloading” of up to five years’ worth of gifts into one year, which results in longer and more significant compounded growth.

Paying directly for medical care or tuition. If you wish to help a loved one pay for healthcare needs or education costs, the way to do this is to pay the institution directly. You may make unlimited payments to medical providers or educational institutions on behalf of others for qualified expenses without incurring a taxable gift or impacting your $17,000 individual gift exclusion. In addition, qualified medical expenses would be considered deductible for income tax purposes. Educational expenses are tuition, not living expenses or dorm fees. However, educational expenses aren’t limited to college and could be for a private school at the primary or high school level. Even certain daycare and afterschool activities might qualify.

Using the lifetime gift and estate tax exemption. One of the best estate planning tax strategies is to gift assets you expect to have significant appreciation in the future. For example, you have a $100,000 investment in a tech start-up you believe will appreciate ten times over the next five years. Of course, gifting the $100,000 investment today makes you eat slightly into your gift and estate tax exemption. All the future appreciation of the investment is still out of your taxable estate and into the hands of your heirs—estate and gift-tax free.

Converting IRAs to Roth IRAs. The SECURE Act’s 10-year rule eliminated the ability to ‘stretch’ inherited IRAs over most beneficiary’s lifetimes. A way to preclude the tax burden on your heirs from an inherited IRA is to convert it to a Roth IRA. You’ll pay the taxes at the time of conversion, but they won’t have to pay taxes upon inheriting the IRA or any future appreciation in the account.

Implementing discount strategies. This is a complex strategy used for transferring family businesses or real estate. Discount strategies reduce the value of an interest before its transfer to its value for gift tax purposes is reduced. You maintain some control or benefit from the asset after the transfer. Examples are FLPs (Family Limited Partnerships), Limited Liability Companies (LLPs) and Qualified Personal Residence Trusts (QPRTs).

Reference: yahoo! Finance (May 25, 2023) “Here’s How the Ultra Rich Pass Wealth Tax Free to Their Heirs”

Estate Planning Lessons from Elvis’ Mistakes

So far, part of the Presley legacy appears to be the failure to create effective estate plans, says a recent article from Kiplinger, “Five Estate Planning Lessons We Can Learn From Elvis’ Mistakes.” An effective estate plan transfers assets and legacy to the right people at the right time, while keeping the wrong people out.

In this case, the right people would be the people whom Elvis and Lisa Marie wanted to benefit, and a good estate plan would have ensured that their desired beneficiaries or heirs received their inheritance. The right time would be to give control of assets to loved ones when they are mature enough to benefit for a lifetime. Keeping the wrong people out would mean minimizing tax and administrative costs and protecting heirs from lawsuits, divorce, creditors and a second level of estate taxes upon their own death.

Most recently, Priscilla Presley challenged a 2016 amendment to Lisa Marie’s trust which would have removed Pricilla as co-trustee from serving alongside Lisa Marie’s former business manager, Barry Siegel. This may have been her intent. However, the amendment didn’t include basic legal formalities. A confidential settlement was recently reached on this issue.

Priscilla had grown Elvis’ estate after his death. Despite his fame, he left an illiquid estate worth $5 million in 1977—adjusted for inflation, roughly $20 million in today’s dollars. The IRS successfully asserted that the estate was worth far more and asserted $10 million in estate taxes.

The estate didn’t include as much royalty income as expected because Elvis’ business manager, Colonel Tom Parker, sold the music catalog to RCA for $5.4 million, of which only $1.35 million went to the estate. Priscilla then assumed control of the estate. From her wise use of Graceland profits, merchandising and royalties for music recorded after the RCA deal, Priscilla grew the estate to $100 million.

In 1993, Lisa Marie turned 25 and was eligible to receive and control her inheritance. She established a revocable trust to hold her inheritance, then appointed a businessman as her co-trustee with primary control over her assets. In two years, he sold 85% of her interests in Elvis Presley Enterprises, an entity The Elvis Presley Trust created to conduct business, including Graceland and worldwide licensing of Elvis Presley Products.

The deal was worth $100 million but brought the estate only $40 million after taxes, plus $25 million in stock in a future holding company of American Idol, later made worthless due to bankruptcy by its parent company.

Careful planning could have avoided substantial income tax on the sale and provided the family a much better financial return. Siegal was removed as trustee in 2015 when lawsuits between Siegel and Lisa Marie began, which were pending when she died unexpectedly in 2023.

The lessons from the Elvis estate:

Use a trust, not a will. The trust removes delays, and higher costs and keeps private details private.

Make sure that your estate plan addresses estate tax issues. The goal is to reduce the value of the taxable estate and increase the value of your legacy to family and loved ones. The estate tax must be paid in cash within nine months from the date of death. This often requires a sale of estate or trust assets to pay the tax and can lead to heirs getting less than the full value of assets because of the need to come up with the cash. A simple testamentary charitable lead annuity trust (TCLAT) could have prevented the estate tax assessed after Elvis’ death and provided substantial benefits to Lisa Marie.

Plan for a lifetime legacy. Lisa Marie gained complete control over her inheritance at age 25. First, however, she needed to prepare for the complexity of the business and other assets she inherited and learn how to maintain a lifetime of living within her means.

Plan for estate taxes on the sale of the family business. Careful planning can almost always reduce the tax triggered by the sale of appreciated property. Unfortunately, no tax mitigation planning was taken before the $100 million sale of Elvis Presley Enterprises. As a result, the maximum capital gains tax, federal and estate combined, can be more than 40%.

Carefully choose the successor trustee or executor and provide at least two alternatives. Elvis appointed his father Vernon as the executor. Elvis died tragically in 1977 when Vernon was elderly and not well. Appointing a business manager as a trustee creates an inherent conflict of interest due to the business manager’s ability to profit from decisions made. A professional trustee would have been a better choice due to the complexity of the estate and Lisa Marie’s age.

Reference: Kiplinger (May 18, 2023) “Five Estate Planning Lessons We Can Learn From Elvis’ Mistakes”

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What’s the Latest on Multiple Wills of Queen of Soul?