It’s the holidays, and you’re likely planning on spending time with friends and family as a part of your celebrations. While you’re all together, family gatherings may offer a unique opportunity to have meaningful conversations about the future and how you can best support each other. 

Advanced Planning Discussions 

Whether you’re anticipating caring for aging parents or growing older yourself, family involvement can make life easier. Engaging loved ones with open communication about estate planning may avoid confusion and misunderstandings later. 

If you have aging loved ones whom you don’t see regularly, a holiday gathering can be a good time to take stock of how they’re doing physically and mentally. If your loved one has experienced health challenges in the past year, it’s a good idea to recommend that they complete a Power of Attorney and Advance Directive for Healthcare, if they haven’t done so already. Having those measures in place can provide some peace of mind if your loved one needs help with financial or medical matters in the future. The same is true if you or your spouse are getting older and want to make sure you have a trusted fiduciary in place to make decisions for you if needed. 

Other estate planning tools are also worth discussing when you have the chance. Health challenges and diminished capacity can prevent a person from being able to keep up with managing their accounts and assets well. As part of comprehensive estate planning, a Revocable Living Trust protects and manages assets while a person is still living. 

A Letter of Instructions (LOI) is a written or electronic document that contains practical information for fiduciaries. An LOI commonly includes account numbers, passwords, and other personal information. While it takes some effort to put together, fiduciaries will appreciate having it when it is needed. The LOI should be kept in a safe location where fiduciaries can find it, and the LOI’s creator can let loved ones know where it resides. 

Communicating Legacy and Values 

Family gatherings can be a wonderful time to share memories and traditions, and part of passing along a legacy is communicating family history and guiding principles. We have long recommended that our clients prepare Ethical Wills. Ethical Wills record a person’s history, wishes, beliefs, values, morals, or other personal information for loved ones. We can tell you from experience that they can be powerful communications, and the effect is usually quite profound. Imagine delivering an Ethical Will to your loved ones during your lifetime, perhaps during a holiday gathering, to enable you to see the results. 

If charitable giving is important to you, you can include your wishes and plans for the future with regard to supporting charitable endeavors. 

Gifting to Others from an Estate 

The holidays are a season of giving, and many people enjoy gifting assets while they can see the effect on the recipient. Rather than waiting to leave something of special value, such as art or jewelry, to a beneficiary in a Will, it’s often a joyful experience to gift the item outright and explain its special significance. 

In addition to giving objects of personal value, people often like to gift money to loved ones if they are financially able to do so. Such gifting can be financially beneficial to their estate by minimizing the tax burden, and recipients are usually delighted to receive such gifts. For 2024, up to $18,000 can be gifted per individual recipient with no gift tax consequences. This gift tax annual exclusion amount will rise to $19,000 per recipient in 2025. 

The Metro Atlanta-based estate planning attorneys at Morgan & DiSalvo would be pleased to answer your questions about estate planning and provide advice on having productive conversations with family members and loved ones. We can help you craft a plan that gives you peace of mind. Please call (678) 720-0750 or email info@morgandisalvo.com. Happy Holidays!