Classic Issues in Family Succession Planning

"[The perfect inheritance is] enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing."
-- Warren Buffet

Classic Issues in Family Succession Planning: In this era of tax avoidance it often seems that the guiding goal of estate planning has become to pass as much wealth to the next generation as tax-free as possible. But clients are increasingly concerned that the passage of their wealth may do more harm than good to their family. These two articles from the American Bar Association capture in very un-lawyerlike fashion, the critical issues estate planners and their high net worth clients should consider when passing on family wealth.

* Protecting and Preserving the Family—The True Goal: Focusing exclusively on taxes subtly suggests that protecting the family assets is the primary goal of an estate plan. Clients and planners have begun to recognize that this is a misplaced emphasis that focuses attention on assets rather than family, on structure rather than perspective, on tax savings over family need.

* Classic Issues in Family Succession Planning: This article will examine some of these great human issues as they have been portrayed over the centuries between parents and their children and considers how estate planners could have helped resolve the conflicts they reflect.