My wife and I periodically update our Will and we’re getting close to having to update it again. The major changes over the years were who we designated to have as custodian for our kids but now that all our kids our adults, we’re planning on updating it again. To that end, I started watching some YouTube videos and came across the video at the link below about treating your kids equally.
I was intrigued and watched the video and as always, I learned something new. Specifically, equal doesn’t mean an equal percentage of assets because taxation is a huge consideration. Right now our situation is a little more complicated because we have one kid living in Europe and we worry about the treatment of any assets he may receive considering European countries have tax rates of 50% or more in some cases.
We are now having to look into leaving our European kid’s asset in a trust that he can access to avoid possible taxation issue but we don’t have all the answers yet. Of course there are other considerations because another kid wants to move to a state with a state income tax either New York or Illinois and that could potentially trigger state income taxes.
Once we figure this all out, I’ll post a follow up but I suspect it may take a while to figure this all out.
Share The Wealth
Do you have a detailed Will that covers all tax situations? If so, what tools did you use to figure it all out?