1. Avoid a Court Guardianship of Minor Children’s Inheritance Under Tennessee law, if a child receives more than $10,000 outright and not in trust, the child’s guardian must establish a court-supervised financial guardianship over the funds. So if you and your spouse die without a Will, your surviving family will have to hire an attorney and petition the court to establish a guardianship to oversee the money. The court clerk’s office and a judge, instead of your relatives, will decide how your money is spent on your children. Plus, your children will receive all guardianship funds outright at age 18 — a sobering thought for those of us with teenagers. With proper estate planning, you can provide that the money you leave for your children will be administered by the person or people you trust, under the terms and conditions you specify, and until the age you deem appropriate. 2. Avoid Unnecessary Death Taxes Some simple planning can help you double the amount that passes to your family free of death taxes. Without proper planning, if everything passes to your spouse at your death, then at your spouse’s later death, Tennessee will take about 9% of any amount over $1M and the IRS will take about 40% of anything over $3.5M. Death taxes are calculated based on the value of your total “estate,” which includes the proceeds of life insurance policies you owned. You can double the amount passing tax-free by providing that at your death, your assets pass into a trust for the benefit of your spouse, instead of outright. Your spouse can be the trustee of the trust, and no matter how much the trust assets appreciate during your spouse’s lifetime, they will ultimately pass to your children totally free of death tax. The trust assets are also protected from creditors and future spouses of your spouse, and these protections can even be extended to your children and grandchildren following the death of your spouse. 3. Rest Assured Your Assets Will Pass As You Intend Tennessee law provides that unless you otherwise designate, upon your death your assets pass to your next of kin as defined by law, including a third to your spouse. Anything you own jointly will pass to the joint owner, and any asset that has a beneficiary designation, such as a life insurance policy or an IRA, will pass to the designated beneficiary, regardless of what your Will says. Proper estate planning means coordinating your asset structure and beneficiary designations to work in tandem with a well-crafted, individualized Will or Living Trust to maximize tax benefits and ensure your hard-earned money passes the way you want it to pass. We rely on decades of experience with these matters to help you avoid the pitfalls of estate planning, and work with you, your family, and your financial planner to ensure everything is done correctly and to your satisfaction.