Education Center

Taxes are a part of everyone's financial life, but they are often viewed as something to deal with once a year when it is time to file a tax return. While filing your taxes is important, tax planning can have an impact far beyond what you owe or receive as a refund when you file. The decisions you make throughout the year can affect how much of your income and investment growth you ultimately get to keep.

In this blog post, we continue the theme of efficiently passing assets to the next generation. Over the last two blog posts, we have discussed what controls the transfer of your assets and what happens after wealth passes to the next generation. We explored how beneficiary designations, account titling, and estate documents work together, as well as how different types of inherited assets can create very different tax consequences and planning opportunities for your beneficiaries.

Different types of assets follow a different set of rules once passed on to the next generation. We will walk through the most common assets passed down and the financial impact these assets can have on your beneficiaries.

When you think about estate planning, you may think of the recommended documents – wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and beneficiary forms. While these documents are very important, the documents themselves do not ultimately determine where your assets go.