Estate Planning
Estate Planning
Estate planning is designed to ensure your wishes are properly defined and upheld when you pass on.
It is a legal binding assurance that your hard-earned assets will be secure.
These hard-earned assets are things like the home you own, your investments, your retirement accounts and life insurance.
You might be thinking that estate planning only applies to the rich and elderly, however, this is not the case.
Common Misconceptions about Estate Planning
Estate planning does not only apply to substantially wealthy people with a certain number of assets. The purpose of estate planning is to protect anyone at any stage in their life.
The estate planning process only becomes more complicated depending on the number of assets you have and the complexity of the assets – like certain investment types.
Estate planning applies to everyone, so before you overlook the process, read through these four easy steps and contact us for further information.
Four Steps to Estate Planning
We’ve compiled the process into four simple steps to help you understand what is involved in estate planning.
1. Create a will
Creating a will gives you the assurance that when you pass, your assets will be safe and your loved ones looked after the way you choose.
Your will is a legally binding document that sets out important decisions like:
- The recipients for each of your assets;
- The carers for your children; and
- Your funeral wishes
Once created, your will does not have to remain set in stone. You will always have the option to make small or major changes as you please.
2. Consider your superannuation and life insurance
Your elected super fund will have rules in place for the death nominations you have made. You will need a Binding Death Benefit or Non-Lapsing Death Benefit to ensure your super fund allocates the entirety of your superannuation to your wishes.
It is important to regularly check up on your super fund and the benefit nominations to ensure they are up to date. We recommend checking every three years or so, or whenever you make changes to your superannuation.
If you have your life insurance policy with a third party other than your super fund you may need to nominate a beneficiary.
3. Choose your Power of Attorney
One of the most important decisions you might make in regards to your estate is choosing the right Power of Attorney and Power of Guardianship.
Your chosen Power of Attorney should be somebody you trust to act on your behalf when it does come time for you to pass.
You might also decide to choose a Power of Guardianship to make decisions on your behalf regarding your health care, where you will live and your lifestyle as you enter into the later stages of your life.
4. Manage your tax
For the purpose of Capital Gains Tax (CGT), it is important you have managed your assets so that when your beneficiaries do receive your assets, they are not stuck with large sums of tax to pay.Fortunately, there are a few ways to overcome this. Speak to one of our financial planners today regarding managing your tax to avoid leaving behind large tax bills for your loved ones.
Start your Estate Planning today
Estate planning can be daunting but when you speak to one of our friendly financial planners, you’ll see just how simple and worthwhile it is.
Start your estate planning today and trust us with your estate planning decisions.
