Trust Topic Introduction

One of the challenges in Estate Planning is the ability to communicate complex concepts to our clients in an effort to assist them in making the right decisions for themselves and their family members. Generally speaking, the larger the estate the more difficult the challenge. The reason for this is simply that the tax bite can be so intrusive that it will materially alter what we leave our family members. Consequently, we find that tax complexities are apt to dominate the communications because with careful planning you can save a significant part of your estate for ultimate distribution to individuals and non-profits of your choice.

In trying to communicate effectively, my personal experience is that I first need to know what the client wants, and I then need to know their personality. A colleague once confided that the mistake we make as estate planners is to explain the concepts and details of an estate plan rather than just the bottom line. "Just show them the tax dollars that they will save and tell them what they must do to save it". My reaction was that I didn't think I had a choice. Some people have personalities that take to this approach, others do not. Some people only want the bottom line, others want all the details, and most of us are somewhere in between. Therefore, I had to communicate in layers.

Layers? Now anyone who would communicate with the last sentence of the last paragraph, would probably be communication challenged. I am communication challenged. My first job out of law school was as a tax editor. My job was to take a sixty page case and summarize it in one paragraph. My personality was to take one paragraph and summarize it in sixty pages. So I struggle with this. Fortunately, the Internet has made my job easier; more specifically, hyperlinks.

If you have made it this far into our web page, you are familiar with hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are the colored and underlined coded words that let you click on the word and go somewhere in the vastness of the Internet to a screen that has information waiting for you. This is a hyperlink.

There are some tremendous resources on the net. Complex estate planning topics are being handled using different levels of communication from the simple to the most complex. The former being the most in demand by our clients, and the latter available for your brother-in-law who first wants a definition of blue before you can discuss how blue the sky is today.

So we plan on writing short pieces in our Trust Topics Link with hyperlinks coded according to complexity. Blue will be "Clear and Concise". Green will be " A little more complex", and if you occasionally see Red it will mean "Your brother-in-law".

We will of course confine our text to generalizations and will attempt to filter the links so they are accurate. Having said this, please don't take any action based on what is presented here without consulting with your attorney and/or qualified tax advisor.

Thank you for scrolling this far,
Jack Davidson

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