The Best-Laid Plans Aren't Left to the Commonwealth
Article published in Northampton Living
(May 2023)
EXPERT CONTRIBUTOR
Claire Crowley & Ben Palkowski
Estate Planning Attorneys
Old Colony Law
413 387 0080
oldcolonylaw.com
If you don’t have an estate plan, you’re not alone. In fact, most adults die without one. Even notable figures like Kurt Cobain, Abraham Lincoln, Howard Hughes, Prince and Pablo Picasso died without a will.
Why do so many people – from former presidents and rock stars to your family members and friends – work their entire lives to accumulate assets but fail to spend mere hours deciding how their assets should pass when they die?
Many individuals assume estate planning is only for the wealthy or the elderly. Others delay it because they don’t want to think about mortality. But if you die without an estate plan, your family may be burdened by legal costs, delays in receiving their inheritance, public embarrassment and shattered relationships – and you lose control of how your assets are distributed. The government decides.
Massachusetts was one of the original colonies that evolved into a country founded on principles like property rights, privacy and personal autonomy. Creating an estate plan is a method of exercising the principles deeply rooted in our culture.
Estate planning allows you to decide who gets your assets, how and when your assets are distributed, who will act as your personal representative or trustee to carry out your wishes, and who will care for your children. If you have concerns about privacy, trusts can be used to avoid public probate proceedings. Trusts can also be used to protect your child’s inheritance from being whittled away because of financial immaturity, a divorcing spouse or substance abuse.
You may be familiar with the phrase “nothing is certain in life except for death and taxes.” Today, more than 200 years after Benjamin Franklin uttered this famous line, it still rings true. The uncertainty for most of us, however, is when death will happen and what the tax laws will be when it does. It is impossible to know how our elected officials on Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill may change the estate tax laws. But estate planning can help minimize the post-death asset distributions to the government required to satisfy tax bills.
Notably, the government doesn’t always wait until your death to make decisions on your behalf. In the absence of legal documents reflecting your wishes, if you become incapacitated during life, your business and financial affairs will be handled by a court-appointed individual, as will important health care decisions.
Estate planning is all about choices. Failing to create an estate plan is also a choice: to allow the Commonwealth to dictate how everything you’ve worked a lifetime for gets distributed when you're gone.
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