Retirement & Estate Planning in North Carolina
How can you protect what you’ve built?
After years of hard work and experience, retirement is an important time to take steps toward protecting your assets. If you own a home, have built retirement accounts, wish to manage how your children receive an inheritance, or want to donate to specific causes from your estate, consider the following information:
How can you avoid paying estate tax?
Recent tax code changes set the federal estate tax exemption at $15 million per individual and $30 million for married couples. As long as your estate is less than those numbers (as is the case for more than 99% of Americans), you do not need to worry about paying a federal estate tax.
North Carolina repealed its estate tax on the state level in 2013, so hardly anybody needs to take corrective measures to minimize tax burden.
How can you make the probate process easier for your kids?
Adult children often struggle after losing a parent. Aside from the obvious emotional turmoil they are facing; they must navigate an often-cumbersome court process to handle your estate. Here are some things that you can do now to minimize their burden:
Set beneficiary designations with backups. Retirement accounts (IRAs, 401(k)s, etc.) and life insurance can pass to whomever you wish via beneficiary designation forms, rather than by will. If you have not checked recently, call your bank or insurer or log in to your online accounts to see who you have listed as beneficiaries.
Keeping these designations up to date will make a big difference for your intended beneficiaries.
You may also want to retitle your vehicle for joint ownership with the person you would like to pass it to after death, which will prevent it from requiring probate.
You should update your beneficiaries and your estate plan at key times during your retirement: downsizing or moving homes, change in marital status, a major healthcare diagnosis, or birth of grandchildren.
Avoid Probate entirely with a Revocable Living Trust. Probate is the court supervised process of administrating a will. In North Carolina, probate is relatively streamlined and caps court fees at 0.4% of the gross estate to a maximum of $6,000. That said, the probate process can be quite lengthy and involved—normally from six to eighteen months requiring a lot of legwork, including making a full inventory of all your belongings for public disclosure.
If you want to save your children the inconvenience, it could be prudent to prepare a Revocable Living Trust. Any property or accounts that you place in a trust will not have to go through the courts, resulting in a significant decrease in administrative effort down the line, not to mention increased privacy.
How Can you Give a Portion of your Estate to Charity?
There are a number of ways you can make sure your money goes to a good cause. You could leave either a specific dollar amount or a percentage of the estate to a charity of your choice in a will. A Revocable Living Trust can similarly provide a way to give to charitable organizations while simplifying estate administration and keeping your giving private. More complex giving structures could involve setting up a Charitable Remainder Trust, a Charitable Lead Trust, or even a Charitable Foundation. Regardless of the amount you would like to leave as your legacy, we can help guide you through the process and get the paperwork in order.
Take time now to protect your retirement assets by scheduling a free consultation with an attorney to go over your specific situation. Upon completion, you will know that you have done what is best for your family and the causes you support. We look forward to meeting you.
Planning for retirement and estate matters in North Carolina requires careful consideration and expert legal guidance. Our comprehensive services for retirement and estate planning cover a wide range of legal instruments, including wills, trusts, powers of attorney, beneficiary plans, and legacy giving strategies.
Taking actions like these will set your big plans in motion so that you can live your best life!
We understand the complexities of estate taxation and asset distribution, offering tailored solutions to protect your wealth and ensure your legacy is preserved according to your wishes.