Tax & Wealth Transfer Planning
Attorney in San Francisco, California

Protection and transfer of your wealth can be complex and requires careful planning. Wealth transfer planning is unique in every situation. Effective wealth transfer planning focuses on the current needs of your desired beneficiaries and the needs that they may face in the future.

This usually begins with making sure that your needs and your spouse's needs are provided for now and that surviving spouse is provided for in the future. This may also include your children or grandchildren or it could include a favorite charity.

It is important to consider the unique situation of each of your beneficiaries to determine how you can best utilize your wealth to help each one. Some may not need your wealth or some may be harmed if given too much wealth. It may make sense to provide some of your beneficiaries with assistance now rather than later. It is not required that all beneficiaries get an equal amount. Also, it is not required that your children receive all of your assets.

Your life purpose and your values should be considered as part of your wealth transfer planning. How can you further your life purpose and values through your planning? Have you properly trained your successors with the values and wisdom to handle the wealth that you could pass on to them? Also, in the case of business owners, this will require looking at business succession planning.

All of the above planning can take some time, so we always want to make sure that an initial plan is in place to cover the question, "What if something happens to me before we complete the wealth transfer planning process?"