Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
All right, good afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
This is Retirement Ready, which is a topic specific show.
I am Dave Kopek, the president of the Retirement Planning Group.
We have five locations here in New York State now
and my son is with me today, Christopher William. We
are live lave in the studio at twelve or five
(00:39):
on a Saturday, when it's like eighty five, you go.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Into the track today. No, I am not.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
No, I don't blame you, yuck. I can imagine. Chris
and I had a long day yesterday. We flew from
Dominican Republic back home. We went down for a wedding,
and to say it was a long day as kind
of an understatement. Twelve hours traveling is that fun?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
No? Would you agree? Yeah, no, it's not.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I wanted to take you to go to sleep last
night five minutes, three seconds. Ye didn't even unpack. So
we're here live in the studio. If you have any
questions or comments, it's one eight hundred talk WGY. It's
one eight eight two five fifty nine forty. I want
to talk about a topic that for some of us
(01:25):
we kind of put it on the back burner, but
it's probably one of the most critical things that we
can do. And I'll have to tell you there's been
four deaths that have been right in front of us
over the last week, week and a half. May here rest,
May she rest in peace, This little girl up in
lake George Hulk Hogan, Ozzy Osbourne, of course, Malcolm Jamal
(01:49):
Warner who was swimming with his daughter Costa Rica and
saved her, but he didn't make it. So it's really
been a horrible, horrible week for bad things. And as
I've always said over and over again, bad things happen
to good people and you got to make sure you
have your ducks in a row. And it sounds kind
(02:09):
of corny, but when I say that I'm a child,
I'm a child of a father that died very young.
My dad went away on a golf trip and came
back in a casket. So I know what it's like
to have shock to the family. And no one wants
(02:30):
to think about it, and no one wants to basically
put themselves in a position. As far as your estate planning,
you know, when you're young, you're invincible, right, you can
do almost anything. But many people believe that having an
estate plan means simply having a will, and believe me,
there's much more to it than this. I think about
(02:53):
hull Kogan, he was just recently married in the last
eighteen months, sizeable estate. It's got kids, strange from his daughter,
and I wonder how buttoned up his plan was with
all the dynamics of what was going on. So we're
gonna talk a little bit about having a successful estate plan.
(03:14):
Make sure that you have all the provisions that's going
to allow your family members to basically have peace of mind,
take control of the assets. And most of this, folks,
believe it or not, you can do it yourself. And
it's simply by titling assets. And when I say that
estate planning is not only for the wealthy, it's not
just for the wealthy, it's for everybody. Everybody can benefit
(03:35):
from it sure that their assets and their finances are
properly taken care of after their death.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Would you agree, my son.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, yeah, I mean titling your assets is obviously a
huge part of the estate buttoning everything up, Like you
were saying, some people may push it off and keep
delaying and delaying it, but it's something that should be
dealt with on the on in so that and looked
at constantly or updated if there's any changes made. Like
you said, haul Cogan was a strange from his daughter.
(04:08):
If he never went in and retitled where his assets
are going, maybe he didn't want to leave any to her,
while some are still probably going to go to her
if nothing was changed.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, So today we're going to talk about some estate
planning must haves. If you have any questions or here,
live in the studio one eight hundred talk WGY one
two five fifty nine forty nine, and I'll just give
you my own personal feeling. As a matter of fact,
I sit here with you and at your ripe old
age of twenty six, you should have me your own
(04:39):
legal documents right now.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
You should have a will.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I mean, you've got in a state, you have assets,
you should have a duabb attorney that you know, beneficiary designations,
health care power. So we're going to take care of
that in the very near future, you and Papa Bear.
But so we're going to talk about those in particular.
We're going to talk about the will versus a trust.
We'll talk about a durable power of attorney. We'll talk
(05:03):
about beneficiary designations which trump the will. Your beneficiary reforms.
I don't care what your will or your trust says.
Your beneficiary form is where the money's gonna go, letter
of intent, health care power of attorney, and of course
guardianship of your children's should something happen to you when
they're still minors. So does your estate plan measure up?
(05:29):
So wills and trust? What's your position on wills and trust?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Chris?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
After working with this, I think wills and trusts have
a place. You know, maybe a younger person like myself
or a younger couple, you can get away with just
doing the basics like a will, power of attorney and
a healthcare proxy and just doing like some of the
basic legal docs just to set them up and establish
(05:53):
them before you have a family and you go into
your progressing through your life, whereas like when you get
closer to retirement, maybe you're sixty fifty five sixty re
looking at those documents and just updating them to make
sure that everything's buttoned up, and then start kind of
(06:15):
taking a look at if a trust would make sense,
whether it's an irrevocable trust to protect from a health
event and ended up in a nursing home. So I
think as you age, you know, the trust kind of
comes more and more into the picture as far as
what are you doing for a long term care health
(06:36):
event and how are you planning around that?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I don't disagree with that. I think as you age,
you the more assets that you accumulate. I'm in the
camp that I think a will is the thing of
the past. I'm probably more in tune with doing a
revocable trust at a young age and then basically changing
that over to an irrevocable trust later in life if
you don't have long term care insurance, or if you're
(07:00):
looking to protect assets from creditors, predators, evil son of
laws and daughter in laws and bankruptcies and all the
other stuff. So we'll talk a little bit about this today,
but the bottom line gets down to is that you
need to understand one thing. Simply sitting on the fence
doesn't put you in a better spot. You need to motivate.
(07:21):
You need to understand that retirement accounts have a very
dynamic line on it when you fill out the paperwork.
It's called beneficiary designation. Insurance policies are the same way
beneficiary designations. Also annuities, non qualified annuities have what we
call beneficiary forms. So there's a lot of different ways
(07:44):
that you can transfer your wealth. It's just got to
make sure that you're matching you up. If your beneficiary
form says that my son Christopher gets one hundred percent
of your money, but your will says that you're going
to divide it by three with my son, my daughter,
and my other son. Guess what's gonna happen. Chris is
(08:06):
going to be dancing in the street and he's gonna
be very happy because the money's going to go to Chris.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, it's not a bad not a bad gig for
you like that one. Yeah, that's good. That sounds pretty good.
It's a good option.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
But the other thing too is bank accounts. You know,
you can add a t o D which is just
a transfer on death or payable on death POD to
bank accounts, which a lot of people don't really think
of establishing when they're checking their savings accounts. They think
it's more their investment accounts are four one k's or
roth IRA's, you know, because it's part of the process
(08:40):
of opening the account. But making sure, yeah, you have
beneficiary set up for those accounts as well.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, because what you don't want to do is you
don't want to have your assets now being starled tied
up in what we call probate.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
It's not a fun process. It doesn't have to happen
simply by ditting your eyes across and your teas. One
of the software packages that we have is called e Money.
Not only does the money tell you exactly the money
that you have and the assets that you have, it
also tells you how it's titled and who the beneficiaries are,
so it allows for you to ensure the proper distribution
(09:18):
of your assets how they were drafted. I know that
currently some of you that are out there are probably
thinking about it, and we'll talk about it in greater
detail when we come back. This is Retirement Ready Today.
We're talking about what is your estate plan?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Are you ready for retirement or just hoping it works out?
Don't leave your future to chance. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we help you create a personalized retirement plan so you
can relax knowing you are prepared. Take action today called
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine nine. That's
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine to one nine.
Or visit us at our website rpgretire dot com to
(10:07):
schedule your complementary consultation. Your future will say thank you.
You've spent a lifetime saving for retirement. Now it's time
to make that money work for you. Here's the secret
most people miss. You have to create your own retirement
income plant. Social security is not enough, pensions are rare.
You need a strategy that turns savings into monthly income
(10:28):
that will last a lifetime. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we build customized income distribution plans so you can retire
with confidence, retire smart, live well. Call eight eight eight
five eight zero nine one nine for your complementary consultation.
Retirement is in a Sunday thing. It's a now thing.
Whether you're just starting out or nearing the finish line,
(10:50):
the best time to build your retirement plan is today.
Don't wait for the right moment. Let's create a plan
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that comes with it. Call out my office today and
take action. Eight eight eight five eight zero one nine
one nine. That's eight eight eight five eight zero one
nine one nine, and your future will thank you. Are
(11:15):
you ready for retirement or just hoping it works out
don't leave your future to chance. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we hope you create a personalized retirement plan so you
can relax knowing you are prepared. Take action today called
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
That's eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine,
or visit us at our website rpgretire dot com to
(11:37):
schedule your complementary consultation. Your future will say thank you.
(11:59):
All right, we are back. I'm Dave Kopak, the president
of Retirement Planning Group here with my son Christopher William
who is one of the financial advisors now at RPG.
See un a graduate with a degree in financial planning.
So three about three years now, you're in the saddle
four four years now, hard to believe. So all right,
(12:24):
so let's let's go through it here. And if you
have questions about your own estate plan, beneficiary forms, TODs, pods,
whatever it may be, give us a call. We're live
in the studio today. One eight hundred WGY that's one
eight hundred eight two five forty nine. So will or trush,
(12:44):
it's a wait for you to bequeath the assets right
outside of the will. So one of the things that
you need to start thinking about is who do you
want your money to go to if something happens to you?
And sometimes it's a difficult, difficult decision. And I'll give
you a little bit of history as far as what
(13:05):
happened in our family. My brother in law had a
very good job and he ended up getting cancer.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
He died.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
His beneficiary form at work for his life insurance was
his mother, not his wife and kids. Because it had
been twelve fifteen years that he'd worked there, he didn't
look at it. So when they wrote the check for
the life insurance policy, it went to my mother in law.
It didn't go to his wife and kids. So it's
always important to make sure that you look at these documents,
(13:33):
at least on an annual basis. As we're all quite
well aware, things change. People change, kids, change, circumstances change,
family members get out of you know, whack, and you
want to make sure that you're putting them in a
position that if they do not have the capability of
managing wealth, or if they have health issues, or if
(13:55):
they have drug addiction. It's very important that not only
are you raft in these documents in order for them
to go to where you want them to go. But
do you have some kind of a fiduciary Do you
need to have somebody manage these assets for an extended
period of time?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
And the other thing too, to piggyback off that is,
like the major life changes is always a good time
to review, you know, your a state plan or documents.
Just within the break here, I was looking up as
far as what Google thinks, you know, how frequently people
should review their state documents, and it says, you know,
every three to five years at a minimum.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Don't believe. I don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So I think if you're working with somebody a financial advisor,
the advisors should be sitting down with you. You should be
going over your beneficiary forms. You should be going over
as far as you know, do you did you go
get the power of attorney? Did you get the health
care proxy? Why why do people do a revocable trust
(14:54):
versus an irrevocable trust? Well, it's pretty easy. Revocable trust.
You can basically you can settle your estate within like
seventy two hours a will you no, it's going to
go through probate, it might take you seventy two months,
especially if people challenge it. So it's really critical that
you understand these things because you know, we've got eighty
five trillion dollars of wealth that will be transferring over
(15:16):
the next twenty to thirty years from my generation to
our kids. That's a whole hell of a lot of money,
and you want to make sure that it's you know,
not only essential, but I would say it's one hundred
percent guaranteed that these children and grandchildren and loved ones
understand is that they're going to have to make some
decisions not only as far as financial but also legal
(15:37):
decisions to protect these assets.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, and the caveat to that was every three or
five years minimum unless there's major life changes like marriages, divorce, births, deaths,
or if tax laws are changed like pending a state
tax thresholds or trust laws. So it's something that if
everything stayed the same, sure you can look at it
(16:03):
every now and then and just make sure you know
everything is in place the way you want it to be.
But if things are changing, you know, there's new marriages,
there's new grandkids, there's new laws or tax thresholds out
there that you know are affecting all this stuff, then yeah,
you should be sitting down with someone and going over
all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Well, I'll be interested to see what happens. You know,
a lot of this comes out of the woodwork after
you know the people pass away. Did Hulkokan have his
estate in order? Did Malcolm Jamal Warner have his? Did
Ozzy Osbourne? You know a lot of these guys have historically,
you know, you think about I think I mentioned this
this morning and this morning's program. I think Prince is
(16:46):
still going through settling his estate with his family members
because he basically died with no legal documents. So, as
I said, the document right is a very powerful tool
in order for you to transact business and not only
as far as real estate, but investments, you know, personal
(17:07):
items that might be extremely heartfelt to other personal members
of your family. So it's important to make sure that
everybody's on the same page and your wishes are going
to be finalized. Now, the final one before we have
to take a break at the bottom of the hour,
(17:29):
which I think trillions of dollars are basically controlled by
this document and it's called a beneficiary form, beneficiary designation.
What do you want to say about them, Chris, Beneficiary forms.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Everyone should have one.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
If you have any type of account, whether it's through
work or personally or your bank account, they should have
the money going somewhere. So in the event that, you know,
you walk outside and get hit by a bus, there's
no argument over it, there's no fighting over it, there's
no pro rate. It just goes to whoever's listed as
the beneficiary. And then you know, also look at your
(18:06):
contingent beneficiaries as well, because if you have primaries on there.
If you got one primary and your primary beneficiary dies
before you do, well, then you have no beneficiary. So
you might as well put two people if you have
someone you know who is a contingent, where in the
case that the primary beneficiary does predecease you, your contingent
(18:27):
would be next up to inherit that money. So if
you are setting up these accounts or have accounts already listed,
and you only have one beneficiary and it's just a primary,
you might want to think about adding a contingent so
that there's a protection on that money as well as
far as who else it would go to. Here's the headline.
(18:51):
It's estimated that eighty this is from Fidelity, who we
custodian all of our assets with eighty four trillion dollars
of assets could move from our generation to younger generations
over the next two decades, the majority of which will
pass directly to heirs. And as that pool of money
gets transferred, a good chunk of it is held in
(19:13):
IRA accounts, estimated right now to be about fourteen fourteen
trillion dollars. So a significant percentage of these assets that's
going to be passed is going to be passed through
what what I just said a beneficiary form, So you
got to make sure that the beneficiary form is created.
But there's also a document that you need to understand too,
(19:34):
and it's the ability for you to disclaim an IRA disclaimer.
That means this.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
If I have a large IRA, and I have my
wife as the primary beneficiary, and then I have my
three killed children, Christopher, Mikhaela, and David listed as the
contingent beneficiaries, I go through the Pearlygate and my wife
is walking into a nursing home. The last thing she
(20:03):
needs is a large IRA because most of those withdrawals
are not going to go to her or to the kids.
It's going to go to the nursing home. Right, So
you want to make sure that she or your family
has the ability to disclaim assets. So you've got nine
months from the time that I passed away to make
that decision. How much will be retained, right and how
(20:25):
much is going to be going to Julie versus how
much is going to my three kids. So I got
a one million dollar IRA, and Julie has more than
enough resources between social Security and other investments and pensions.
She doesn't need a million dollars. All she needs is
(20:45):
maybe one hundred thousand dollars for quality of life. So
my son, because he's so smart, would basically say, listen,
we have the IRA disclaimer. Mom's going to disclaim ninety
percent of these assets. I'm listed, my brother's listed, and
my sister's listed for a third to third a third.
(21:07):
So nine hundred thousand dollars would pass on to my children,
would not go to my wife, three hundred thousand would
go to Chris, three hundred thousand would go to Mikaela,
three hundred thousand to my son David. Julie retains the
one hundred thousand dollars. It's outside the estate right and now,
instead of basically being in a position to take large
(21:28):
distributions because you're forced to at required minimum distribution. Now
you've got the ten year rule, you got ten years
to take that money out before you're gonna have to
empty the account.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, the the retirement you know, required minimum distribution, that
retirement minimum distribution, but the required minimum distribution is only
going to get higher and higher as well. So we
always tell people, you know, you're gonna you're gonna get
larger and larger chunks of money when you want it
less and less as you age, and especially with this
ten year you have ten years to take the money out.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
We telp people as well.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
You know, if you do inherit an IRA account in
this circumstance, you give ten years, so all the money's
got to be completely gone by the end of that
ten years. So you're gonna it's gonna affect your tax
you know, you may step up into another tax bracket,
which you don't necessarily want to do.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Crap it are crap it bracket creep.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Yep, unless it's like a raw ira. So this is
just for you know, four to one k and traditional ira,
so that we're speaking about. But but yeah, as far
as we're we're looking up stats you know, I have
a list of stats here that I was I was
pulling up, you know, in anticipation of this conversation. Uh,
as far as you know dying without a plan and
how it can cost thousands of dollars, it's just a
(22:47):
statistic on probate. You know, probate court is slow and expensive.
You know, it's the headline, and without a plan, your
family can lose a big chunky or a state. So
the the average probate costs or anywhere between three to
seven percent of your estate's value and can take anywhere
from on average nine to two years or nine months
(23:07):
to two years.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
To complete instead of seventy two hours.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Right, and three to seven percent of the estate's value.
So I mean at a minimum, on a million dollar account,
there's thirty thousand dollars going to fees that should be
going to your beneficiaries.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
So when you talk about who is a non spouse beneficiary,
it's pretty straightforward. I don't think I have to get
into this in great detail. That your children, grandchildren, sibling
or other relative of the owner friend doesn't make any
difference who it is as long as they're named as
a beneficiary. So this is one of the things that
(23:47):
we go over at the retirement Planning Group, especially for
our new clients, they understand exactly what they've created. A
lot of you will be top heavy, meaning that you'll
have a lot of pre tax money, not after tax money.
That means that you're gonna have forced liquidation, not because
you want it, but because the government is forcing you
to liquidate it. And when you least want the distribution
(24:08):
is when they becomes the greatest. So if you're in
your fifties and sixties and you're listening to this show,
I can guarantee you one thing, you should give us
a call. This is an area that I have quite
a bit of experience forty three years of being in
the business twenty nine just doing pre and post retirement planning.
We'd love to sit down with you. All you have
to do is pick up the telephone and call our
(24:30):
office five eight five eight zero one nine. We'll be
back after the news. I'm Dave Kopek. This is retirement ready,
(24:56):
all right?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Hear it back?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It's our new tunes. I think great, It's not like
you're at the Sketticook Fair. Dude duo, there goes to
the tilted world. All right, we're talking about the documents
that you have to have in place, whether you're twenty
five or eighty five. And the sooner you do it,
the better off you're going to be.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Believe me.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Especially, you know, like my daughter's going away to college,
back to FAU. She does not have a healthcare proxy,
and I want to make sure that she has one
before she goes home back to school. So I gotta
get that done. Chris, you gotta remind me to do that,
because you know, we goin there, something happens to her.
You know, there's no healthcare proxy. We can't really basically
(25:38):
do a lot.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah, people ask too, like why do we need the
three basics? You know, why do I you know, why
can't I just get a will? Why do I need
the power of attorney in the healthcare proxy? I mean,
the reason for that is it's, you know, it's not
just about buttoning up what happens after you die. It's
also you know, there's some research that I was doing
(26:01):
on these topics that also affect when you're still alive.
You just cognitively you're not all the way there, so
that starts to decline. So the other stat that I
was looking up was one in three Americans over sixty
five will experience some form of cognitive decline that would
require a financial or medical power of attorney to step in.
(26:22):
And this was published by the Alzheimer's Association back in
twenty twenty three. So this is some you know, it's
two year old data. It may be even more now,
but it's you know, the power of attorney is, you know,
having someone there who you trust, who will play out
your wishes. You know, after if you do end up,
(26:43):
you know, with Alzheimer's or God forbid something that you
can't make a decision for yourself, you know later in
life someone can step in and help you out and
do that for you. And who would maintain your assets
the way you would want to maintain them.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Well, everybody's got special things that they've accumulated in their lifetime.
And I can't tell you how many stories I've heard
in forty three years being in this business where I've
heard people talk about dad's gun, mom's ring. You know,
you go through the whole laundry list of things. So
(27:22):
the next document I think is critical. It's called letter
of intent. What's a letter of intent? You look at
people sometimes in their glassy eye. It's a simple, straightforward
document that allows your executor or a beneficiary, and the
purpose of it is to find where you want this
(27:42):
particular asset to go after you die. So, as I said,
you know, it could be a gun, it could be
a car, it could be stamps, it could be a
whole different But but document could be valid in the
eyes of the law because it held helps the judge,
right if there's a challenge what your intentions were and
(28:07):
how you ultimately wanted those assets distributed once you passed away.
I can't overemphasize that enough because I've seen horror stories
with people that have certain assets that are very heartfelt,
that want to go to certain particular individuals and it
ends up being a mess. Where did Mom's ring go?
(28:27):
Where did Dad's going to go?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Right?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Yeah, And that's exactly why you do this stuff and
making a state plan. It's because some people will be like, oh,
it's you know, state planning. I don't have that many assets.
You know, that's for you know, that's for rich people.
That's not something that I need to worry about. But
it's not that couldn't be more wrong, you know, it's
it's not really about if you have, you know, millions
of dollars. It's more so about protecting what you do have,
(28:52):
you know, in your kids, your house, and setting it
up so you're avoiding future family conflicts so you're not
just passing away. And then you know your kids are
going to get in this huge fight or disagreement about
what the what they were owed, what they felt that
they should have got. So it buttons everything up and
just lays the cards out on the table that when
(29:13):
you do die, this is what everyone gets. This was
your final wishes, and we say it's managing your assets
from the grave. You know, that's what a trust is
meant to do.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
And then you got healthcare powers, power of you know,
power of attorney. This is the one that's difficult sometimes
for the individual that's being picked. Typically it's for one
of your family members, your mom or your dad, and
it allows you to make very important sometimes life events,
healthcare decisions on the behalf of the person that is
(29:44):
in the bed or incapacitated. So if you're considering who's
going to be that person, you don't want to be
the evil dodd in law or son in law to
have the health care power of attorney and you've got
a common cold. Basically at least they pull the plug
at them. You want you want to make sure that
you've got a course of action, you feel comfortable with
(30:05):
that person because you basically have your life in their hands.
And it's probably one of the most powerful documents is
the health care power. But the other one, of course,
is the durable power of attorney. Durable power of attorney
allows the person to act in your capacity for everything.
The healthcare power of attorney allows you to give that
(30:28):
to someone that's going to make your health decisions. So
if I know my wife and I right now have
a durable power of attorney or not also healthcare proxy.
But you want to make sure you have a backup
in case the person is unavailable or has passed away,
and you have an updated There should be a primary
(30:49):
and a contingent on both of those simply because you know,
like I, like I said, things happen, people pass away,
and you don't necessarily you want to be in that
position where the court's coming in to make the decisions for.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
You, right, Yeah, you never want you never want an
attorney or a judge making a final decision on stuff
that you've accumulated throughout your entire life on So and
that's you know, love the statistics. I'm gonna throw more
at you. There's outdated or incomplete at the time of death.
As far as estate plans, it's more than forty percent
(31:24):
of all estate plans are either outdated or incomplete at
the time of death. It's often due to non updated
beneficiary forms or old power of attorneys through and that's
you know, from the National Association of Estate Planners. So
as far as people just put it on the back burner,
you know, they think, eh, you know I set it up.
(31:45):
It's not a set it and forget it. Think it's
more of a setate and maintain it now in maintenance
on it. Like we were saying earlier, is that probably
every three to five years. So if you haven't really
had anybody, look at the documents, if you've had some
new grandkids, if you've had you know, it got the worst. Yeah,
there was an instance that we were we heard a
story about a fella who was working. He you know,
(32:09):
he listed his ex wife as the beneficiary on his
on his plan as far as his retirement account in
his life insurance policy got divorced, remarried, and didn't update
his beneficiary reforms. He then passed away and all of
his stuff went to the ex wife. So that's something
where you know, it's an easy fix, it really doesn't
(32:30):
take that much time, but it's something that would be
detrimental in the event that you die earlier than you
think you're going to do.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
So I was kind of summarized a little bit because
we went through some bullet points here. Uh, we're talking
about the state planning the eighty five trillion dollars of
wealth that my generation will pass on to my children
and grandchildren. It's a collection of documents and it's something
(32:59):
that I'm always flabbergasted when I meet with people that
have hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars,
and they basically don't have any of this put together.
It includes what what do we talk about?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
The will?
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Yeah, the will, the power of attorney, the health care proxy.
You know, those are the basics as far as getting
those first three set up. And then I mean the
very very minimum basic is just beneficiary forms. You know,
making sure you have a beneficiary form on all of
your accounts. I'd say that's your first step as far
as you know, just making sure all that's updated, it's
(33:35):
the correct person, you know, if you're still working.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
All hell breaks loose when both spouses pass away at
the same time. Yeah, when the first spouse passes away, right,
you're usually in pretty good shape because then you can
basically go in there and you know, slice and dice
and put the thing together in order to what it
will be necessary for quality of life, which is.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Typically the female.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
But the stake planning can be done no matter what
your financial status is and where you you know where
you're standing. So, as I said, this is as important
for a young person as it is for somebody my age.
So make sure when you sit down with your underaged
children right when they're getting ready to go to college,
(34:20):
there's certain documents that they should have in place for
their own safety. So there isn't a problem if something
happens and you have to go to a nurse in
a nursing hospital and the child needs care and you
don't have the health care proxy in place, you know,
I hear I heard Lupiro talk about this numerous times
(34:42):
on his radio show. So the bottom line, what's a
good time to start. You tell me, Chris, when's a
good time to start?
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (34:50):
I mean as soon as you have assets that you've accumulated,
and you have any people dependent on you.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
You got to be on your four Oh. Ok, and
I ra that is undisclosed information. I don't know. Honestly,
I should probably look at my own.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
But you know right now, I'm not asking you mention it.
Do you know who your beneficiary for him is? Or
did you even put one in there?
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Because you're so young, I'm not even sure, to be honest,
I set it up four years ago and I haven't
looked at it since. So I'm a private example of
someone who needs to go back.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, you were always a mommy's boy, so I bet
you put mom down on there initially.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
No, I don't know, I don't know. Maybe yeah, maybe.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
So as I said, it's a great time to start,
there's no time like right now. You know, as I
always say over and over and over again, people get
sick and tired of me here. If you don't have
a plan, then any destination will do. Don't put your
family members in that position, right, Don't put your family
members in that position. I don't care if you got
(35:50):
fifty thousand dollars or fifty million. A lot of times
people start going through this planning process and they think
it's they're going to meet the grim Reaper. He is
going to show up at their door. All you're doing
is basically titling assets, making sure beneficiary forms are done properly,
(36:11):
your other legal documents, and what you want to do.
You want to make sure that your loved ones, the
people that you care about, have access to these documents,
your assets. Whether it's temporary or if you're in capacity,
it could be forever, it could be.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Forever, right, Yeah, As far as like the most important
things to do, it's obviously just button everything up and
then you know, make sure that people who you want
to receive the assets are receiving the assets, make sure
those assets are protected and beyond your way, Yeah, on
your marry way.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
All right.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
We're live in the studio. We're here in Lotham, New York.
We can be of assistance you have any particular question.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
One wgy.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
We are living through the greatest wealth transfer in the
history of mankind. Trillions of dollars of wealth will change
hands from one generation to the next. Your money to
our beloved children and grandchildren.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Your future is written by chance, it's written by action.
Now's the time to build your plan, protect your assets,
and position yourself for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Don't wait, take action.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
If future favors those that are prepared, call eighty eight
five eight zero one nine one nine. That's eight eight
eight five eight zero one nine one nine. Retirement is
in a Sunday thing. It's a now thing. Whether you're
just starting out or nearing the finish line, the best
time to build your retirement plan is today. Don't wait
for the right moment. Let's create a plan that works
(37:41):
for you. Secure your future and the freedom that comes
with it. Call my office today and take action. Eighty
eight eight five EID zero one nine one nine. That's
eighty eight five aid zero one nine one nine, and
your future will thank you. We are looking through the
greatest wealth transfer in the history of mankind. Millions of
dollars of wealth will change hands from one generation to
(38:03):
the next. Your money to our beloved children and grandchildren.
Are you ready? Your future is written by chance, It's
written by action. Now's the time to build your plan,
protect your assets, and position yourself for the opportunity. Don't wait,
take action. The future favors those that are prepared. Call
eighty eight five eight zero one nine one nine. That's
(38:23):
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
You've spent a lifetime saving for retirement. Now it's time
to make that money work for you. Here's the secret
most people miss. You have to create your own retirement
income plan. Social security is not enough, pensions are rare.
You need a strategy that turns savings into monthly income
that will last a lifetime. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we build customized income distribution plans so you can retire
(38:47):
with confidence, retire smart, live well. Call eight eight eight
five eight zero one nine one nine for your complementary consultation.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Portions of the following program were pre recorded. All right,
(39:16):
we are back.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I'm Dave Kopak. This is the Retirement Ready Probably. I
think this is one of the most critical shows that
we do throughout the year. The state planning must have
And when I say that it must have, it's an understatement.
Don't put your family in a position where there's going
(39:39):
to be stress anxiety. People are running around trying to
figure out where the hell everything is. It's just that's
not that's not love, that's anxiousness. And you know you
don't want to you don't want to do that. So,
as they say over and over, a successful plan includes
provisions that allow your family members to access in control
(40:00):
your assets. No more complicated than that, no more complicated
to that. So one of the things that I want
to talk a little bit about over and over again,
and I try to do that is, you know, most
of us do not have long term care insurance. And
when you talk about trust, you need to understand is
that there's really three documents that transfers wealth to the
(40:24):
next generation. The will, an irrevocable or revocable trust, and
then of course there's one other one, the beneficiary form.
There's four documents. So you know, we live in a
society today where there's a lot of drug addiction, alcoholism, autism,
(40:45):
that people need to have some path to have fiduciary
responsibility on these assets for an extended period of time. Right,
just leaving assets in a beneficiary form or putting it
in a will does not satisfy what you're going to
need in that situation. Trust help those individuals that need
(41:07):
help in their lifetime. The starving artists, the child that
decided to go to Broadway and made twenty to twenty
five thousand dollars a year and waited on tables and
never really made it. How do I know about that
because with my brother, of course, is a professional actor,
(41:29):
and I can remember what he did in the very
beginning in order to survive and basically do his trade.
So when you sit down and you have a chat
with your spouse or your loved ones or your children,
Chris and my other son David are the trustees co
trustees for.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Julie and I.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
And that's something that when David's coming home in a
couple of weeks, I need to sit down with them
and go over what we're currently doing and some of
the things that I want to make sure that they understand.
Having open dialogue and conversation is your friend. You know,
some people don't basically want to pull down the curtain,
right as the old saying. You go to the doctor's
(42:12):
office and he says, you know what, pull down your pants.
Sometimes you got to pull down your pants. You don't
want to do it, but you're going to have to
do it in order to make sure that everything's okay.
That's no different in the financial services industry. Sometimes we
have to ask questions that we don't like to ask.
Especially now here's the key one, folks, this is my
(42:34):
lead into it. Blended families, previous marriages, previous children. What
happens I got a child by a previous marriage. I've
got three with Julie. What happens to my daughter from
my previous marriage when I pass away? How does she
(42:54):
receive some of the wealth that we've accumulated in our lifetime.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
It's a conversation, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
You just structure it into your documents and how you
want them written up. It really is fully customizable, you know,
to however you want it to be settled out. So
as far as writing up these documents, whether it's a
will or a revocable or irrevocable trust, you know, they're
written out how you want them to be written out.
So once you just get them set up and established,
(43:23):
it's really just letting them play out.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
The other thing is too, is that you know, for
people that have young children, you know, I know there's
a lot of people younger people that listen to the
show in their thirties and forties always name a guardian
in a backup guardian for your underage children. You know,
as I said, it's important not just make a choice,
(43:50):
make sure that you think about it. Have a chat
with a family member and say, hey, listen, if something
happens to me and Gerald Deane, are you going to
be able to step up and basically take care of
you know, little little jethrow here. And I've never even
heard that name, Gerald Deane. Gerald Dean is Geraldine Ohn't
(44:12):
you be true, my Geraldine?
Speaker 1 (44:15):
You never heard that song Geraldine? I don't think I have.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
I'm aging myself, my son, I'm aging myself. So the
documents that you create give a pathway to your family
members and loved ones what your wishes are and ultimately
how you want to have your wealth transferred. Again, I'm
going to say this over and over again, eighty five
trillion dollars of wealth, folks is moving on to the
(44:43):
next generation. It's already starting. I'll tell you a real
quick story here, and I know that Chris has heard
me say this. Husband and wife both retired. He was
an administrator in the school district and she was a
school teacher. Her sister was a very successful nurse. Her
sister never married her sister created quite a bit of wealth.
(45:07):
The school administrators created quite a bit of wealth, doing
extremely well between social security, pension benefits and distributions off
of their iras because they are at that age where
they have to take rm ds. And now, guess what.
Now they're in a pickle because the sister died, didn't
(45:30):
tell them that her wealth was going to be transferred
to them, did not have contingent beneficiaries so they could
disclaim some of the assets. So what's happening now? They're
getting checks for like one hundred thousand dollars a year
off of her iras, not because they want them, but
because why they're forced to liquidate it because of rm
(45:51):
ds off of non spouse beneficiaries. He's not happy. She's
not happy. She knows what her sisters wish were. She
spoke to her sister, but she didn't realize that her
sister was leaving everything to her and basically putting her
in a position that she's going to have substantial tax liability.
(46:13):
He basically says, listen, we don't need this money. I
want to get rid of it and pass it on
to the nieces and nephews and our kids and I said,
you know what, my good man, that would be easy.
But you know what, it was not done on the
front end, So now you're suffering on the back end
because there was never a discussion on how to transfer
(46:33):
assets at death. So don't do that to your families.
Make sure you know if you're leaving assets, substantial assets
to loved ones, family members, friends. You know, I had
a gentleman that didn't live too far from me in
Half Moon. He got to knock on the door one day.
Nicest guy on earth calls me up and he says, Dave,
(46:57):
I got to talk to you. I said, okay, be over.
Is to stop over as soon as you can. You
got a letter this woman that he was basically very
kind to took care of. Little did he know that
she was a multi millionaire. She left her entire estate
to him, entire estate. He was blown away. Now it
(47:18):
was a life changing event for him because it allowed
him to have a better quality of life. But you
never know around what's coming around the corner, folks, so
be prepared, have your documents in place. Understand that there
are certain things that can be done in order to
preserve an estate, and understand will is a great place
(47:40):
to start, but it's only I'm want to overemphasized the beginning.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
How do you like that? Pretty good?
Speaker 3 (47:47):
Yeah, summarized it pretty well. But yeah, the open dialogue
thing I think is important for people to understand.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
I think I think we see it a lot.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
You know, everyone like people families come in their pretty
closed lips about you know, their a state and they
don't want their kids involved or no, no, no, I
don't they they'll see this money when after we're dead
and gone. I mean, if that's how you feel, I
guess that you know, we're not going to put you
in a choke hold and tell you not to do it.
But I think having an open dialogue and at least
(48:17):
letting them know your plan and how it's going to
play out so they're all on the same page and
it's not just you know, a shock factor after you
pass away, would be beneficial for all parties involved. You know,
it's something where open dialogue and letting them know how
it's going to be played out is huge.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
So again, if you need help or assistance, you know,
we're not attorneys. We work with a lot of attorneys.
We have certain ones that we work a lot with
and we would love the opportunity to sit down with
you if this is the year that you're thinking about.
You know, I really want to get my house in order.
I want to basically put myself in a position that
(48:58):
I don't have to worry about this. Gives a call
at our office. It's eighty eight five eight zero one
nine one nine. It's five win eight area code. But
if you want to call toll free eight eight eight
five eight zero one nine nine. Check us out on
the web rpgretire dot com. Have we changed the articles recently?
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Yeah? Change them every week?
Speaker 3 (49:19):
You do?
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, you guys are doing that.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Okay, good, good, So again, either my son Christopher, Chris McCarthy,
Nico Dumas or myself will sit down with you. I
travel quite a bit now and because of that, I'm
not in the office as much as I used to be.
But if you want to talk to me specifically, just
call the office and say I listened to Dave on
the radio and I want the old man at the table.
(49:44):
I don't want the young buck here, so I'd be
more than happy to do it. And again and again,
don't procrastinate.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Motivate.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
The worst thing you can do is put your family
in a position that they have no idea what's going on,
and assets are going to be challenged through probate. I'm
Dave Kopek. This has been retirement Ready, which is topic specific.
Hopefully you found an informative again, if you'd like to
meet with us eighty eight five eight zero nine nine,
(50:13):
we'll see you next week.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
The information or services discussed on this show is for
in family and is not intended to be personal financial advice.
The investments and services offered by US may not be
suitable for all investors.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
If you have any doubts as to the merits of
an investment, you should seek advice from an independent financial advisor.
All right, good afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
This is Retirement Ready, which is a topic specific show.
I am Dave Kopek, the president of the Retirement Planning Group.
We have five locations here in New York State now
and my son is with me today, Christopher William. We
are live lave in the studio at twelve or five
(00:39):
on a Saturday, when it's like eighty five, you go.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Into the track today. No, I am not.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
No, I don't blame you, yuck. I can imagine. Chris
and I had a long day yesterday. We flew from
Dominican Republic back home. We went down for a wedding,
and to say it was a long day as kind
of an understatement. Twelve hours traveling is that fun?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
No? Would you agree? Yeah, no, it's not.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I wanted to take you to go to sleep last
night five minutes, three seconds. Ye didn't even unpack. So
we're here live in the studio. If you have any
questions or comments, it's one eight hundred talk WGY. It's
one eight eight two five fifty nine forty. I want
to talk about a topic that for some of us
(01:25):
we kind of put it on the back burner, but
it's probably one of the most critical things that we
can do. And I'll have to tell you there's been
four deaths that have been right in front of us
over the last week, week and a half. May here rest,
May she rest in peace, This little girl up in
lake George Hulk Hogan, Ozzy Osbourne, of course, Malcolm Jamal
(01:49):
Warner who was swimming with his daughter Costa Rica and
saved her, but he didn't make it. So it's really
been a horrible, horrible week for bad things. And as
I've always said over and over again, bad things happen
to good people and you got to make sure you
have your ducks in a row. And it sounds kind
(02:09):
of corny, but when I say that I'm a child,
I'm a child of a father that died very young.
My dad went away on a golf trip and came
back in a casket. So I know what it's like
to have shock to the family. And no one wants
(02:30):
to think about it, and no one wants to basically
put themselves in a position. As far as your estate planning,
you know, when you're young, you're invincible, right, you can
do almost anything. But many people believe that having an
estate plan means simply having a will, and believe me,
there's much more to it than this. I think about
(02:53):
hull Kogan, he was just recently married in the last
eighteen months, sizeable estate. It's got kids, strange from his daughter,
and I wonder how buttoned up his plan was with
all the dynamics of what was going on. So we're
gonna talk a little bit about having a successful estate plan.
(03:14):
Make sure that you have all the provisions that's going
to allow your family members to basically have peace of mind,
take control of the assets. And most of this, folks,
believe it or not, you can do it yourself. And
it's simply by titling assets. And when I say that
estate planning is not only for the wealthy, it's not
just for the wealthy, it's for everybody. Everybody can benefit
(03:35):
from it sure that their assets and their finances are
properly taken care of after their death.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Would you agree, my son.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, yeah, I mean titling your assets is obviously a
huge part of the estate buttoning everything up, Like you
were saying, some people may push it off and keep
delaying and delaying it, but it's something that should be
dealt with on the on in so that and looked
at constantly or updated if there's any changes made. Like
you said, haul Cogan was a strange from his daughter.
(04:08):
If he never went in and retitled where his assets
are going, maybe he didn't want to leave any to her,
while some are still probably going to go to her
if nothing was changed.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, So today we're going to talk about some estate
planning must haves. If you have any questions or here,
live in the studio one eight hundred talk WGY one
two five fifty nine forty nine, and I'll just give
you my own personal feeling. As a matter of fact,
I sit here with you and at your ripe old
age of twenty six, you should have me your own
(04:39):
legal documents right now.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
You should have a will.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I mean, you've got in a state, you have assets,
you should have a duabb attorney that you know, beneficiary designations,
health care power. So we're going to take care of
that in the very near future, you and Papa Bear.
But so we're going to talk about those in particular.
We're going to talk about the will versus a trust.
We'll talk about a durable power of attorney. We'll talk
(05:03):
about beneficiary designations which trump the will. Your beneficiary reforms.
I don't care what your will or your trust says.
Your beneficiary form is where the money's gonna go, letter
of intent, health care power of attorney, and of course
guardianship of your children's should something happen to you when
they're still minors. So does your estate plan measure up?
(05:29):
So wills and trust? What's your position on wills and trust?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Chris?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
After working with this, I think wills and trusts have
a place. You know, maybe a younger person like myself
or a younger couple, you can get away with just
doing the basics like a will, power of attorney and
a healthcare proxy and just doing like some of the
basic legal docs just to set them up and establish
(05:53):
them before you have a family and you go into
your progressing through your life, whereas like when you get
closer to retirement, maybe you're sixty fifty five sixty re
looking at those documents and just updating them to make
sure that everything's buttoned up, and then start kind of
(06:15):
taking a look at if a trust would make sense,
whether it's an irrevocable trust to protect from a health
event and ended up in a nursing home. So I
think as you age, you know, the trust kind of
comes more and more into the picture as far as
what are you doing for a long term care health
(06:36):
event and how are you planning around that?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
And I don't disagree with that. I think as you age,
you the more assets that you accumulate. I'm in the
camp that I think a will is the thing of
the past. I'm probably more in tune with doing a
revocable trust at a young age and then basically changing
that over to an irrevocable trust later in life if
you don't have long term care insurance, or if you're
(07:00):
looking to protect assets from creditors, predators, evil son of
laws and daughter in laws and bankruptcies and all the
other stuff. So we'll talk a little bit about this today,
but the bottom line gets down to is that you
need to understand one thing. Simply sitting on the fence
doesn't put you in a better spot. You need to motivate.
(07:21):
You need to understand that retirement accounts have a very
dynamic line on it when you fill out the paperwork.
It's called beneficiary designation. Insurance policies are the same way
beneficiary designations. Also annuities, non qualified annuities have what we
call beneficiary forms. So there's a lot of different ways
(07:44):
that you can transfer your wealth. It's just got to
make sure that you're matching you up. If your beneficiary
form says that my son Christopher gets one hundred percent
of your money, but your will says that you're going
to divide it by three with my son, my daughter,
and my other son. Guess what's gonna happen. Chris is
(08:06):
going to be dancing in the street and he's gonna
be very happy because the money's going to go to Chris.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, it's not a bad not a bad gig for
you like that one. Yeah, that's good. That sounds pretty good.
It's a good option.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
But the other thing too is bank accounts. You know,
you can add a t o D which is just
a transfer on death or payable on death POD to
bank accounts, which a lot of people don't really think
of establishing when they're checking their savings accounts. They think
it's more their investment accounts are four one k's or
roth IRA's, you know, because it's part of the process
(08:40):
of opening the account. But making sure, yeah, you have
beneficiary set up for those accounts as well.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, because what you don't want to do is you
don't want to have your assets now being starled tied
up in what we call probate.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
It's not a fun process. It doesn't have to happen
simply by ditting your eyes across and your teas. One
of the software packages that we have is called e Money.
Not only does the money tell you exactly the money
that you have and the assets that you have, it
also tells you how it's titled and who the beneficiaries are,
so it allows for you to ensure the proper distribution
(09:18):
of your assets how they were drafted. I know that
currently some of you that are out there are probably
thinking about it, and we'll talk about it in greater
detail when we come back. This is Retirement Ready Today.
We're talking about what is your estate plan?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Are you ready for retirement or just hoping it works out?
Don't leave your future to chance. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we help you create a personalized retirement plan so you
can relax knowing you are prepared. Take action today called
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine nine. That's
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine to one nine.
Or visit us at our website rpgretire dot com to
(10:07):
schedule your complementary consultation. Your future will say thank you.
You've spent a lifetime saving for retirement. Now it's time
to make that money work for you. Here's the secret
most people miss. You have to create your own retirement
income plant. Social security is not enough, pensions are rare.
You need a strategy that turns savings into monthly income
(10:28):
that will last a lifetime. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we build customized income distribution plans so you can retire
with confidence, retire smart, live well. Call eight eight eight
five eight zero nine one nine for your complementary consultation.
Retirement is in a Sunday thing. It's a now thing.
Whether you're just starting out or nearing the finish line,
(10:50):
the best time to build your retirement plan is today.
Don't wait for the right moment. Let's create a plan
that works for you. Secure your future and the freedom
that comes with it. Call out my office today and
take action. Eight eight eight five eight zero one nine
one nine. That's eight eight eight five eight zero one
nine one nine, and your future will thank you. Are
(11:15):
you ready for retirement or just hoping it works out
don't leave your future to chance. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we hope you create a personalized retirement plan so you
can relax knowing you are prepared. Take action today called
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
That's eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine,
or visit us at our website rpgretire dot com to
(11:37):
schedule your complementary consultation. Your future will say thank you.
(11:59):
All right, we are back. I'm Dave Kopak, the president
of Retirement Planning Group here with my son Christopher William
who is one of the financial advisors now at RPG.
See un a graduate with a degree in financial planning.
So three about three years now, you're in the saddle
four four years now, hard to believe. So all right,
(12:24):
so let's let's go through it here. And if you
have questions about your own estate plan, beneficiary forms, TODs, pods,
whatever it may be, give us a call. We're live
in the studio today. One eight hundred WGY that's one
eight hundred eight two five forty nine. So will or trush,
(12:44):
it's a wait for you to bequeath the assets right
outside of the will. So one of the things that
you need to start thinking about is who do you
want your money to go to if something happens to you?
And sometimes it's a difficult, difficult decision. And I'll give
you a little bit of history as far as what
(13:05):
happened in our family. My brother in law had a
very good job and he ended up getting cancer.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
He died.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
His beneficiary form at work for his life insurance was
his mother, not his wife and kids. Because it had
been twelve fifteen years that he'd worked there, he didn't
look at it. So when they wrote the check for
the life insurance policy, it went to my mother in law.
It didn't go to his wife and kids. So it's
always important to make sure that you look at these documents,
(13:33):
at least on an annual basis. As we're all quite
well aware, things change. People change, kids, change, circumstances change,
family members get out of you know, whack, and you
want to make sure that you're putting them in a
position that if they do not have the capability of
managing wealth, or if they have health issues, or if
(13:55):
they have drug addiction. It's very important that not only
are you raft in these documents in order for them
to go to where you want them to go. But
do you have some kind of a fiduciary Do you
need to have somebody manage these assets for an extended
period of time?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
And the other thing too, to piggyback off that is,
like the major life changes is always a good time
to review, you know, your a state plan or documents.
Just within the break here, I was looking up as
far as what Google thinks, you know, how frequently people
should review their state documents, and it says, you know,
every three to five years at a minimum.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Don't believe. I don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So I think if you're working with somebody a financial advisor,
the advisors should be sitting down with you. You should be
going over your beneficiary forms. You should be going over
as far as you know, do you did you go
get the power of attorney? Did you get the health
care proxy? Why why do people do a revocable trust
(14:54):
versus an irrevocable trust? Well, it's pretty easy. Revocable trust.
You can basically you can settle your estate within like
seventy two hours a will you no, it's going to
go through probate, it might take you seventy two months,
especially if people challenge it. So it's really critical that
you understand these things because you know, we've got eighty
five trillion dollars of wealth that will be transferring over
(15:16):
the next twenty to thirty years from my generation to
our kids. That's a whole hell of a lot of money,
and you want to make sure that it's you know,
not only essential, but I would say it's one hundred
percent guaranteed that these children and grandchildren and loved ones
understand is that they're going to have to make some
decisions not only as far as financial but also legal
(15:37):
decisions to protect these assets.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, and the caveat to that was every three or
five years minimum unless there's major life changes like marriages, divorce, births, deaths,
or if tax laws are changed like pending a state
tax thresholds or trust laws. So it's something that if
everything stayed the same, sure you can look at it
(16:03):
every now and then and just make sure you know
everything is in place the way you want it to be.
But if things are changing, you know, there's new marriages,
there's new grandkids, there's new laws or tax thresholds out
there that you know are affecting all this stuff, then yeah,
you should be sitting down with someone and going over
all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Well, I'll be interested to see what happens. You know,
a lot of this comes out of the woodwork after
you know the people pass away. Did Hulkokan have his
estate in order? Did Malcolm Jamal Warner have his? Did
Ozzy Osbourne? You know a lot of these guys have historically,
you know, you think about I think I mentioned this
this morning and this morning's program. I think Prince is
(16:46):
still going through settling his estate with his family members
because he basically died with no legal documents. So, as
I said, the document right is a very powerful tool
in order for you to transact business and not only
as far as real estate, but investments, you know, personal
(17:07):
items that might be extremely heartfelt to other personal members
of your family. So it's important to make sure that
everybody's on the same page and your wishes are going
to be finalized. Now, the final one before we have
to take a break at the bottom of the hour,
(17:29):
which I think trillions of dollars are basically controlled by
this document and it's called a beneficiary form, beneficiary designation.
What do you want to say about them, Chris, Beneficiary forms.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Everyone should have one.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
If you have any type of account, whether it's through
work or personally or your bank account, they should have
the money going somewhere. So in the event that, you know,
you walk outside and get hit by a bus, there's
no argument over it, there's no fighting over it, there's
no pro rate. It just goes to whoever's listed as
the beneficiary. And then you know, also look at your
(18:06):
contingent beneficiaries as well, because if you have primaries on there.
If you got one primary and your primary beneficiary dies
before you do, well, then you have no beneficiary. So
you might as well put two people if you have
someone you know who is a contingent, where in the
case that the primary beneficiary does predecease you, your contingent
(18:27):
would be next up to inherit that money. So if
you are setting up these accounts or have accounts already listed,
and you only have one beneficiary and it's just a primary,
you might want to think about adding a contingent so
that there's a protection on that money as well as
far as who else it would go to. Here's the headline.
(18:51):
It's estimated that eighty this is from Fidelity, who we
custodian all of our assets with eighty four trillion dollars
of assets could move from our generation to younger generations
over the next two decades, the majority of which will
pass directly to heirs. And as that pool of money
gets transferred, a good chunk of it is held in
(19:13):
IRA accounts, estimated right now to be about fourteen fourteen
trillion dollars. So a significant percentage of these assets that's
going to be passed is going to be passed through
what what I just said a beneficiary form, So you
got to make sure that the beneficiary form is created.
But there's also a document that you need to understand too,
(19:34):
and it's the ability for you to disclaim an IRA disclaimer.
That means this.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
If I have a large IRA, and I have my
wife as the primary beneficiary, and then I have my
three killed children, Christopher, Mikhaela, and David listed as the
contingent beneficiaries, I go through the Pearlygate and my wife
is walking into a nursing home. The last thing she
(20:03):
needs is a large IRA because most of those withdrawals
are not going to go to her or to the kids.
It's going to go to the nursing home. Right, So
you want to make sure that she or your family
has the ability to disclaim assets. So you've got nine
months from the time that I passed away to make
that decision. How much will be retained, right and how
(20:25):
much is going to be going to Julie versus how
much is going to my three kids. So I got
a one million dollar IRA, and Julie has more than
enough resources between social Security and other investments and pensions.
She doesn't need a million dollars. All she needs is
(20:45):
maybe one hundred thousand dollars for quality of life. So
my son, because he's so smart, would basically say, listen,
we have the IRA disclaimer. Mom's going to disclaim ninety
percent of these assets. I'm listed, my brother's listed, and
my sister's listed for a third to third a third.
(21:07):
So nine hundred thousand dollars would pass on to my children,
would not go to my wife, three hundred thousand would
go to Chris, three hundred thousand would go to Mikaela,
three hundred thousand to my son David. Julie retains the
one hundred thousand dollars. It's outside the estate right and now,
instead of basically being in a position to take large
(21:28):
distributions because you're forced to at required minimum distribution. Now
you've got the ten year rule, you got ten years
to take that money out before you're gonna have to
empty the account.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, the the retirement you know, required minimum distribution, that
retirement minimum distribution, but the required minimum distribution is only
going to get higher and higher as well. So we
always tell people, you know, you're gonna you're gonna get
larger and larger chunks of money when you want it
less and less as you age, and especially with this
ten year you have ten years to take the money out.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
We telp people as well.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
You know, if you do inherit an IRA account in
this circumstance, you give ten years, so all the money's
got to be completely gone by the end of that
ten years. So you're gonna it's gonna affect your tax
you know, you may step up into another tax bracket,
which you don't necessarily want to do.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Crap it are crap it bracket creep.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Yep, unless it's like a raw ira. So this is
just for you know, four to one k and traditional ira,
so that we're speaking about. But but yeah, as far
as we're we're looking up stats you know, I have
a list of stats here that I was I was
pulling up, you know, in anticipation of this conversation. Uh,
as far as you know dying without a plan and
how it can cost thousands of dollars, it's just a
(22:47):
statistic on probate. You know, probate court is slow and expensive.
You know, it's the headline, and without a plan, your
family can lose a big chunky or a state. So
the the average probate costs or anywhere between three to
seven percent of your estate's value and can take anywhere
from on average nine to two years or nine months
(23:07):
to two years.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
To complete instead of seventy two hours.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Right, and three to seven percent of the estate's value.
So I mean at a minimum, on a million dollar account,
there's thirty thousand dollars going to fees that should be
going to your beneficiaries.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
So when you talk about who is a non spouse beneficiary,
it's pretty straightforward. I don't think I have to get
into this in great detail. That your children, grandchildren, sibling
or other relative of the owner friend doesn't make any
difference who it is as long as they're named as
a beneficiary. So this is one of the things that
(23:47):
we go over at the retirement Planning Group, especially for
our new clients, they understand exactly what they've created. A
lot of you will be top heavy, meaning that you'll
have a lot of pre tax money, not after tax money.
That means that you're gonna have forced liquidation, not because
you want it, but because the government is forcing you
to liquidate it. And when you least want the distribution
(24:08):
is when they becomes the greatest. So if you're in
your fifties and sixties and you're listening to this show,
I can guarantee you one thing, you should give us
a call. This is an area that I have quite
a bit of experience forty three years of being in
the business twenty nine just doing pre and post retirement planning.
We'd love to sit down with you. All you have
to do is pick up the telephone and call our
(24:30):
office five eight five eight zero one nine. We'll be
back after the news. I'm Dave Kopek. This is retirement ready,
(24:56):
all right?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Hear it back?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It's our new tunes. I think great, It's not like
you're at the Sketticook Fair. Dude duo, there goes to
the tilted world. All right, we're talking about the documents
that you have to have in place, whether you're twenty
five or eighty five. And the sooner you do it,
the better off you're going to be.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Believe me.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Especially, you know, like my daughter's going away to college,
back to FAU. She does not have a healthcare proxy,
and I want to make sure that she has one
before she goes home back to school. So I gotta
get that done. Chris, you gotta remind me to do that,
because you know, we goin there, something happens to her.
You know, there's no healthcare proxy. We can't really basically
(25:38):
do a lot.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah, people ask too, like why do we need the
three basics? You know, why do I you know, why
can't I just get a will? Why do I need
the power of attorney in the healthcare proxy? I mean,
the reason for that is it's, you know, it's not
just about buttoning up what happens after you die. It's
also you know, there's some research that I was doing
(26:01):
on these topics that also affect when you're still alive.
You just cognitively you're not all the way there, so
that starts to decline. So the other stat that I
was looking up was one in three Americans over sixty
five will experience some form of cognitive decline that would
require a financial or medical power of attorney to step in.
(26:22):
And this was published by the Alzheimer's Association back in
twenty twenty three. So this is some you know, it's
two year old data. It may be even more now,
but it's you know, the power of attorney is, you know,
having someone there who you trust, who will play out
your wishes. You know, after if you do end up,
(26:43):
you know, with Alzheimer's or God forbid something that you
can't make a decision for yourself, you know later in
life someone can step in and help you out and
do that for you. And who would maintain your assets
the way you would want to maintain them.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Well, everybody's got special things that they've accumulated in their lifetime.
And I can't tell you how many stories I've heard
in forty three years being in this business where I've
heard people talk about dad's gun, mom's ring. You know,
you go through the whole laundry list of things. So
(27:22):
the next document I think is critical. It's called letter
of intent. What's a letter of intent? You look at
people sometimes in their glassy eye. It's a simple, straightforward
document that allows your executor or a beneficiary, and the
purpose of it is to find where you want this
(27:42):
particular asset to go after you die. So, as I said,
you know, it could be a gun, it could be
a car, it could be stamps, it could be a
whole different But but document could be valid in the
eyes of the law because it held helps the judge,
right if there's a challenge what your intentions were and
(28:07):
how you ultimately wanted those assets distributed once you passed away.
I can't overemphasize that enough because I've seen horror stories
with people that have certain assets that are very heartfelt,
that want to go to certain particular individuals and it
ends up being a mess. Where did Mom's ring go?
(28:27):
Where did Dad's going to go?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Right?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Yeah, And that's exactly why you do this stuff and
making a state plan. It's because some people will be like, oh,
it's you know, state planning. I don't have that many assets.
You know, that's for you know, that's for rich people.
That's not something that I need to worry about. But
it's not that couldn't be more wrong, you know, it's
it's not really about if you have, you know, millions
of dollars. It's more so about protecting what you do have,
(28:52):
you know, in your kids, your house, and setting it
up so you're avoiding future family conflicts so you're not
just passing away. And then you know your kids are
going to get in this huge fight or disagreement about
what the what they were owed, what they felt that
they should have got. So it buttons everything up and
just lays the cards out on the table that when
(29:13):
you do die, this is what everyone gets. This was
your final wishes, and we say it's managing your assets
from the grave. You know, that's what a trust is
meant to do.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
And then you got healthcare powers, power of you know,
power of attorney. This is the one that's difficult sometimes
for the individual that's being picked. Typically it's for one
of your family members, your mom or your dad, and
it allows you to make very important sometimes life events,
healthcare decisions on the behalf of the person that is
(29:44):
in the bed or incapacitated. So if you're considering who's
going to be that person, you don't want to be
the evil dodd in law or son in law to
have the health care power of attorney and you've got
a common cold. Basically at least they pull the plug
at them. You want you want to make sure that
you've got a course of action, you feel comfortable with
(30:05):
that person because you basically have your life in their hands.
And it's probably one of the most powerful documents is
the health care power. But the other one, of course,
is the durable power of attorney. Durable power of attorney
allows the person to act in your capacity for everything.
The healthcare power of attorney allows you to give that
(30:28):
to someone that's going to make your health decisions. So
if I know my wife and I right now have
a durable power of attorney or not also healthcare proxy.
But you want to make sure you have a backup
in case the person is unavailable or has passed away,
and you have an updated There should be a primary
(30:49):
and a contingent on both of those simply because you know,
like I, like I said, things happen, people pass away,
and you don't necessarily you want to be in that
position where the court's coming in to make the decisions for.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
You, right, Yeah, you never want you never want an
attorney or a judge making a final decision on stuff
that you've accumulated throughout your entire life on So and
that's you know, love the statistics. I'm gonna throw more
at you. There's outdated or incomplete at the time of death.
As far as estate plans, it's more than forty percent
(31:24):
of all estate plans are either outdated or incomplete at
the time of death. It's often due to non updated
beneficiary forms or old power of attorneys through and that's
you know, from the National Association of Estate Planners. So
as far as people just put it on the back burner,
you know, they think, eh, you know I set it up.
(31:45):
It's not a set it and forget it. Think it's
more of a setate and maintain it now in maintenance
on it. Like we were saying earlier, is that probably
every three to five years. So if you haven't really
had anybody, look at the documents, if you've had some
new grandkids, if you've had you know, it got the worst. Yeah,
there was an instance that we were we heard a
story about a fella who was working. He you know,
(32:09):
he listed his ex wife as the beneficiary on his
on his plan as far as his retirement account in
his life insurance policy got divorced, remarried, and didn't update
his beneficiary reforms. He then passed away and all of
his stuff went to the ex wife. So that's something
where you know, it's an easy fix, it really doesn't
(32:30):
take that much time, but it's something that would be
detrimental in the event that you die earlier than you
think you're going to do.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
So I was kind of summarized a little bit because
we went through some bullet points here. Uh, we're talking
about the state planning the eighty five trillion dollars of
wealth that my generation will pass on to my children
and grandchildren. It's a collection of documents and it's something
(32:59):
that I'm always flabbergasted when I meet with people that
have hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars,
and they basically don't have any of this put together.
It includes what what do we talk about?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
The will?
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Yeah, the will, the power of attorney, the health care proxy.
You know, those are the basics as far as getting
those first three set up. And then I mean the
very very minimum basic is just beneficiary forms. You know,
making sure you have a beneficiary form on all of
your accounts. I'd say that's your first step as far
as you know, just making sure all that's updated, it's
(33:35):
the correct person, you know, if you're still working.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
All hell breaks loose when both spouses pass away at
the same time. Yeah, when the first spouse passes away, right,
you're usually in pretty good shape because then you can
basically go in there and you know, slice and dice
and put the thing together in order to what it
will be necessary for quality of life, which is.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Typically the female.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
But the stake planning can be done no matter what
your financial status is and where you you know where
you're standing. So, as I said, this is as important
for a young person as it is for somebody my age.
So make sure when you sit down with your underaged
children right when they're getting ready to go to college,
(34:20):
there's certain documents that they should have in place for
their own safety. So there isn't a problem if something
happens and you have to go to a nurse in
a nursing hospital and the child needs care and you
don't have the health care proxy in place, you know,
I hear I heard Lupiro talk about this numerous times
(34:42):
on his radio show. So the bottom line, what's a
good time to start. You tell me, Chris, when's a
good time to start?
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (34:50):
I mean as soon as you have assets that you've accumulated,
and you have any people dependent on you.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
You got to be on your four Oh. Ok, and
I ra that is undisclosed information. I don't know. Honestly,
I should probably look at my own.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
But you know right now, I'm not asking you mention it.
Do you know who your beneficiary for him is? Or
did you even put one in there?
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Because you're so young, I'm not even sure, to be honest,
I set it up four years ago and I haven't
looked at it since. So I'm a private example of
someone who needs to go back.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, you were always a mommy's boy, so I bet
you put mom down on there initially.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
No, I don't know, I don't know. Maybe yeah, maybe.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
So as I said, it's a great time to start,
there's no time like right now. You know, as I
always say over and over and over again, people get
sick and tired of me here. If you don't have
a plan, then any destination will do. Don't put your
family members in that position, right, Don't put your family
members in that position. I don't care if you got
(35:50):
fifty thousand dollars or fifty million. A lot of times
people start going through this planning process and they think
it's they're going to meet the grim Reaper. He is
going to show up at their door. All you're doing
is basically titling assets, making sure beneficiary forms are done properly,
(36:11):
your other legal documents, and what you want to do.
You want to make sure that your loved ones, the
people that you care about, have access to these documents,
your assets. Whether it's temporary or if you're in capacity,
it could be forever, it could be.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Forever, right, Yeah, As far as like the most important
things to do, it's obviously just button everything up and
then you know, make sure that people who you want
to receive the assets are receiving the assets, make sure
those assets are protected and beyond your way, Yeah, on
your marry way.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
All right.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
We're live in the studio. We're here in Lotham, New York.
We can be of assistance you have any particular question.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
One wgy.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
We are living through the greatest wealth transfer in the
history of mankind. Trillions of dollars of wealth will change
hands from one generation to the next. Your money to
our beloved children and grandchildren.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Your future is written by chance, it's written by action.
Now's the time to build your plan, protect your assets,
and position yourself for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Don't wait, take action.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
If future favors those that are prepared, call eighty eight
five eight zero one nine one nine. That's eight eight
eight five eight zero one nine one nine. Retirement is
in a Sunday thing. It's a now thing. Whether you're
just starting out or nearing the finish line, the best
time to build your retirement plan is today. Don't wait
for the right moment. Let's create a plan that works
(37:41):
for you. Secure your future and the freedom that comes
with it. Call my office today and take action. Eighty
eight eight five EID zero one nine one nine. That's
eighty eight five aid zero one nine one nine, and
your future will thank you. We are looking through the
greatest wealth transfer in the history of mankind. Millions of
dollars of wealth will change hands from one generation to
(38:03):
the next. Your money to our beloved children and grandchildren.
Are you ready? Your future is written by chance, It's
written by action. Now's the time to build your plan,
protect your assets, and position yourself for the opportunity. Don't wait,
take action. The future favors those that are prepared. Call
eighty eight five eight zero one nine one nine. That's
(38:23):
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
You've spent a lifetime saving for retirement. Now it's time
to make that money work for you. Here's the secret
most people miss. You have to create your own retirement
income plan. Social security is not enough, pensions are rare.
You need a strategy that turns savings into monthly income
that will last a lifetime. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we build customized income distribution plans so you can retire
(38:47):
with confidence, retire smart, live well. Call eight eight eight
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Speaker 1 (38:56):
Portions of the following program were pre recorded. All right,
(39:16):
we are back.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I'm Dave Kopak. This is the Retirement Ready Probably. I
think this is one of the most critical shows that
we do throughout the year. The state planning must have
And when I say that it must have, it's an understatement.
Don't put your family in a position where there's going
(39:39):
to be stress anxiety. People are running around trying to
figure out where the hell everything is. It's just that's
not that's not love, that's anxiousness. And you know you
don't want to you don't want to do that. So,
as they say over and over, a successful plan includes
provisions that allow your family members to access in control
(40:00):
your assets. No more complicated than that, no more complicated
to that. So one of the things that I want
to talk a little bit about over and over again,
and I try to do that is, you know, most
of us do not have long term care insurance. And
when you talk about trust, you need to understand is
that there's really three documents that transfers wealth to the
(40:24):
next generation. The will, an irrevocable or revocable trust, and
then of course there's one other one, the beneficiary form.
There's four documents. So you know, we live in a
society today where there's a lot of drug addiction, alcoholism, autism,
(40:45):
that people need to have some path to have fiduciary
responsibility on these assets for an extended period of time. Right,
just leaving assets in a beneficiary form or putting it
in a will does not satisfy what you're going to
need in that situation. Trust help those individuals that need
(41:07):
help in their lifetime. The starving artists, the child that
decided to go to Broadway and made twenty to twenty
five thousand dollars a year and waited on tables and
never really made it. How do I know about that
because with my brother, of course, is a professional actor,
(41:29):
and I can remember what he did in the very
beginning in order to survive and basically do his trade.
So when you sit down and you have a chat
with your spouse or your loved ones or your children,
Chris and my other son David are the trustees co
trustees for.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Julie and I.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
And that's something that when David's coming home in a
couple of weeks, I need to sit down with them
and go over what we're currently doing and some of
the things that I want to make sure that they understand.
Having open dialogue and conversation is your friend. You know,
some people don't basically want to pull down the curtain,
right as the old saying. You go to the doctor's
(42:12):
office and he says, you know what, pull down your pants.
Sometimes you got to pull down your pants. You don't
want to do it, but you're going to have to
do it in order to make sure that everything's okay.
That's no different in the financial services industry. Sometimes we
have to ask questions that we don't like to ask.
Especially now here's the key one, folks, this is my
(42:34):
lead into it. Blended families, previous marriages, previous children. What
happens I got a child by a previous marriage. I've
got three with Julie. What happens to my daughter from
my previous marriage when I pass away? How does she
(42:54):
receive some of the wealth that we've accumulated in our lifetime.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
It's a conversation, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
You just structure it into your documents and how you
want them written up. It really is fully customizable, you know,
to however you want it to be settled out. So
as far as writing up these documents, whether it's a
will or a revocable or irrevocable trust, you know, they're
written out how you want them to be written out.
So once you just get them set up and established,
(43:23):
it's really just letting them play out.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
The other thing is too, is that you know, for
people that have young children, you know, I know there's
a lot of people younger people that listen to the
show in their thirties and forties always name a guardian
in a backup guardian for your underage children. You know,
as I said, it's important not just make a choice,
(43:50):
make sure that you think about it. Have a chat
with a family member and say, hey, listen, if something
happens to me and Gerald Deane, are you going to
be able to step up and basically take care of
you know, little little jethrow here. And I've never even
heard that name, Gerald Deane. Gerald Dean is Geraldine Ohn't
(44:12):
you be true, my Geraldine?
Speaker 1 (44:15):
You never heard that song Geraldine? I don't think I have.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
I'm aging myself, my son, I'm aging myself. So the
documents that you create give a pathway to your family
members and loved ones what your wishes are and ultimately
how you want to have your wealth transferred. Again, I'm
going to say this over and over again, eighty five
trillion dollars of wealth, folks is moving on to the
(44:43):
next generation. It's already starting. I'll tell you a real
quick story here, and I know that Chris has heard
me say this. Husband and wife both retired. He was
an administrator in the school district and she was a
school teacher. Her sister was a very successful nurse. Her
sister never married her sister created quite a bit of wealth.
(45:07):
The school administrators created quite a bit of wealth, doing
extremely well between social security, pension benefits and distributions off
of their iras because they are at that age where
they have to take rm ds. And now, guess what.
Now they're in a pickle because the sister died, didn't
(45:30):
tell them that her wealth was going to be transferred
to them, did not have contingent beneficiaries so they could
disclaim some of the assets. So what's happening now? They're
getting checks for like one hundred thousand dollars a year
off of her iras, not because they want them, but
because why they're forced to liquidate it because of rm
(45:51):
ds off of non spouse beneficiaries. He's not happy. She's
not happy. She knows what her sisters wish were. She
spoke to her sister, but she didn't realize that her
sister was leaving everything to her and basically putting her
in a position that she's going to have substantial tax liability.
(46:13):
He basically says, listen, we don't need this money. I
want to get rid of it and pass it on
to the nieces and nephews and our kids and I said,
you know what, my good man, that would be easy.
But you know what, it was not done on the
front end, So now you're suffering on the back end
because there was never a discussion on how to transfer
(46:33):
assets at death. So don't do that to your families.
Make sure you know if you're leaving assets, substantial assets
to loved ones, family members, friends. You know, I had
a gentleman that didn't live too far from me in
Half Moon. He got to knock on the door one day.
Nicest guy on earth calls me up and he says, Dave,
(46:57):
I got to talk to you. I said, okay, be over.
Is to stop over as soon as you can. You
got a letter this woman that he was basically very
kind to took care of. Little did he know that
she was a multi millionaire. She left her entire estate
to him, entire estate. He was blown away. Now it
(47:18):
was a life changing event for him because it allowed
him to have a better quality of life. But you
never know around what's coming around the corner, folks, so
be prepared, have your documents in place. Understand that there
are certain things that can be done in order to
preserve an estate, and understand will is a great place
(47:40):
to start, but it's only I'm want to overemphasized the beginning.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
How do you like that? Pretty good?
Speaker 3 (47:47):
Yeah, summarized it pretty well. But yeah, the open dialogue
thing I think is important for people to understand.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
I think I think we see it a lot.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
You know, everyone like people families come in their pretty
closed lips about you know, their a state and they
don't want their kids involved or no, no, no, I
don't they they'll see this money when after we're dead
and gone. I mean, if that's how you feel, I
guess that you know, we're not going to put you
in a choke hold and tell you not to do it.
But I think having an open dialogue and at least
(48:17):
letting them know your plan and how it's going to
play out so they're all on the same page and
it's not just you know, a shock factor after you
pass away, would be beneficial for all parties involved. You know,
it's something where open dialogue and letting them know how
it's going to be played out is huge.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
So again, if you need help or assistance, you know,
we're not attorneys. We work with a lot of attorneys.
We have certain ones that we work a lot with
and we would love the opportunity to sit down with
you if this is the year that you're thinking about.
You know, I really want to get my house in order.
I want to basically put myself in a position that
(48:58):
I don't have to worry about this. Gives a call
at our office. It's eighty eight five eight zero one
nine one nine. It's five win eight area code. But
if you want to call toll free eight eight eight
five eight zero one nine nine. Check us out on
the web rpgretire dot com. Have we changed the articles recently?
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Yeah? Change them every week?
Speaker 3 (49:19):
You do?
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, you guys are doing that.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Okay, good, good, So again, either my son Christopher, Chris McCarthy,
Nico Dumas or myself will sit down with you. I
travel quite a bit now and because of that, I'm
not in the office as much as I used to be.
But if you want to talk to me specifically, just
call the office and say I listened to Dave on
the radio and I want the old man at the table.
(49:44):
I don't want the young buck here, so I'd be
more than happy to do it. And again and again,
don't procrastinate.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Motivate.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
The worst thing you can do is put your family
in a position that they have no idea what's going on,
and assets are going to be challenged through probate. I'm
Dave Kopek. This has been retirement Ready, which is topic specific.
Hopefully you found an informative again, if you'd like to
meet with us eighty eight five eight zero nine nine,
(50:13):
we'll see you next week.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
The information or services discussed on this show is for
in family and is not intended to be personal financial advice.
The investments and services offered by US may not be
suitable for all investors.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
If you have any doubts as to the merits of
an investment, you should seek advice from an independent financial advisor.
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