Think you’re too young or not rich enough for an estate plan? Think again.
Anyone and everyone benefits from an estate plan. From the working poor to the angel investor, I firmly believe that individuals know best how to apply their life’s work to useful efforts and ensure it is directed toward the next generation of stewardship. Without a plan, the building blocks you’ve cohesively assembled during your lifetime may be inefficiently scattered and poorly leveraged at your death. What a wasted opportunity! You have the tools now in order to build great legacies and opportunities for your loved ones and beyond—you just need to ensure that you’re applying them now.
An estate plan should be personal, tailored, thoughtful, and resilient. It should fit your unique circumstances and consider all moving parts. It should cover contingencies, maintaining grace and privacy even in the event of an unforeseen accident, injury, death, or dispute. Like water flowing downhill, it may shift and turn to most efficiently reach the end you intended, though the route may differ from your initial plan.
Each planning group will be posed with different difficulties and distinct issues. A well-crafted estate plan is never one-size-fits-all, but it does consider the common circumstances that affect people depending on age, income, lifestyle, and family.
For the young and working:
- Plans should be tight and efficient. Clients should consider who will make healthcare and financial decisions for them in the event of disability and or accident. Who will be the named Guardian over minor children, where applicable?
- A simple Will ensures that we have avoided the complications for single individuals, blended scenarios, and or those with no children; Ohio’s vague statutes of intestacy should be reviewed and avoided
- It is imperative to understand health insurance options and to watch for unanticipated crossover into Medicaid; inadvertent estate recovery may affect your assets at death.
- Consider the thoughtful use of beneficiary designations on accounts—while also understanding when such designations may not be advisable or may fall short of your goals.
For the middle aged and middle classed:
- Consider the crossover into the world of trusts—how can we allocate and distribute assets privately among multiple beneficiaries without forced buyouts or disputes?
- Have we considered the relationships of our loved ones and their respective ability to deal with inheritance, substances prone to abuse, and lifestyles choices in general?
- For the entrepreneur—how do we ensure that we’ve isolated liability and reduced or eliminated risks from the outside? Have we properly introduced our advisors (insurers, tax advisors, legal counsel, and financial) together in order to flexibly adjust in the event of any issues, litigation, disabilities, and or tragedies?
- Have we planned for long-term care possibilities and the potential need for full-time facility care? What does our family history suggest?
For the wealthy:
- Have we fully employed opportunities to freely gift to our loved ones in such a way that protects them without “too much/too soon” issues?
- Have we leveraged our lifetime exemption amounts (which continue to rise) to reduce or eliminate potential estate tax at death?
- Have we considered charitable endeavors, either to passively transfer onto solid charitable nonprofits or perhaps to run and manage a family legacy for generations? We can create private foundations in such a way that compounds and multiplies the funding possibilities while maintaining thoughtful, directed charitable control within the family.
- Have we considered the creation of additional capital necessary to pay any anticipated tax such that we don’t have to liquidate the family business to satisfy the tax?
Most of all, have we considered the stewardship responsibilities with which we’ve been entrusted? Can we appreciate the unique gifts each of our loved ones possesses? How can we maintain family unity, honor our blessings, and grow in abundance? Answers to all these questions and more can be uncovered at your initial consultation with Roth Bacon Moon.
This article was written by Jessica B. Moon, Attorney licensed in Ohio and Florida. David Bacon, Jeffrey Roth, and Jessica Moon are members in the law firm of Roth Bacon Moon Attorneys, LLC. Their Offices are located in Upper Sandusky, Marion, and Port Clinton, Ohio, and Fort Myers, Florida. They have focused their practice to provide estate and business planning concepts to their clients. Nothing in this article is intended for, nor should be relied upon as individual legal advice. The purpose of this article is to help educate the public on concepts of law as they pertain to estate and business planning. Copyright @ Jessica B. Moon 2025.
