Estate planning for the rest of us: most people don't own enough to owe estate tax when they die. But they still need the kind of estate-planning advice you get from a competent lawyer.

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Illinois

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Estate planning for the rest of us: most people don't own enough to owe estate tax when they die. But they still need the kind of estate-planning advice you get from a competent lawyer.

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Last Will and Testament of Mr. John A. Smith

Section I Declaration

Articles and presentations on estate planning usually focus on clients with substantial resources, as Bloomington attorney Paul Meints observes. "Wonderfully creative and complex arrangements are possible for [these] people....Trust departments, attorneys, CPas, CFPs, ChFCs and other professional advisers joyfully extend their services to clients with wealth." And historically, counseling wealthy clients on lawful methods of managing their estates so as to minimize or avoid federal estate taxes has been a prime reason for these services.

Most people today, however, have no need of estate-tax counseling because they don't own enough property to be subject to the federal estate tax. In fact, for most people, two million dollars--the current estate amount excluded from federal estate tax--would be riches almost beyond imagining.

With federal estate taxes of no concern, and with less money available for the expenses of estate planning and management, does it make any sense for attorneys to encourage clients in humbler circumstances to create estate plans? Or should lawyers abandon this market to the purveyors of do-it-yourself living-trust and will kits?

Estate planning isn't just minimizing federal estate taxes for rich people, say Meints and other experience...

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