Estate Planning – A Useful Tool for Everyone

Helen W. Gunnarsson (Highland Park, Illinois attorney and writer) has recently published her article entitled Estate Planning for the Rest of Us, 95 Ill. B.J. 520 (Oct. 2007).

Here is the introduction to her article:

Most people don’t own enough to owe estate tax when they die. But they still need the kind of estate-planning advice you get from a competent lawyer.

Articles and presentations on estate planning usually focus on clients with substantial resources, as Bloomington attorney Paul Meints observes. “Wonderfully creative and complex arrangements are possible for [these] people…. Trust departments, attorneys, CPAs, CFPs, ChFCs and other professional advisers joyfully extend their services to clients with wealth.” And historically, counseling wealthy clients on lawful methods of managing their estates so as to minimize or avoid federal estate taxes has been a prime reason for these services.

Most people today, however, have no need of estate-tax counseling because they don’t own enough property to be subject to the federal estate tax. In fact, for most people, two million dollars – the current estate amount excluded from federal estate tax – would be riches almost beyond imagining.

With federal estate taxes of no concern, and with less money available for the expenses of estate planning and management, does it make any sense for attorneys to encourage clients in humbler circumstances to create estate plans? Or should lawyers abandon this market to the purveyors of do-it-yourself living-trust and will kits?

Estate planning isn’t just minimizing federal estate taxes for rich people, say Meints and other experienced attorneys with estate planning practices, and lawyers should absolutely court and welcome the business of those of low to moderate wealth. Pretty much everyone, whatever their level of prosperity, wants to be able to remain independent and in their home as long as they wish, not to have their family members impoverished in the event that they must enter a nursing home, and to make sure that the persons of their choosing will receive their property on their death without costly and unpleasant disputes.

Those who have minor or disabled children also want to know that they’ve done what they can to ensure that those children will be cared for in the event that they are no longer able to do so. Too, everyone wants to achieve their goals while maintaining their privacy – and in as cost-effective a manner as possible.