Category: Estate Planning
Blog
Vanilla
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Feb 04, 2025
The 4 Core Estate Documents: What they are and why they’re essential for...
According to a 2024 survey from Caring.com, 40% of Americans don’t think they have enough assets to create a will. This reveals a general lack of understanding around the purpose of a will, which does more than handle financial assets. There’s an enormous opportunity for advisors to help educate clients about the goals of estate planning and core estate documents. If you have a handle on the core estate documents and how they benefit your clients’ finances in the long term, you’ll be more likely to provide advice and guidance that will strengthen ongoing relationships with clients and their families....
Blog
Vanilla
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Jan 23, 2025
Spotlight on Special Needs Trusts: Everything You Need to Know about SNTs
By Lisa A. Cohen, CEO of Visible National Trust Special needs trusts are the cornerstone of disability estate planning, and disability affects many more people and families than we might expect. Incorporating special needs trusts into estate planning brings certainty that families’ wishes will be implemented for their loved ones. Visible National Trust serves families and individuals across the country with complete turnkey special needs trust solutions that meet families’ high service standards and evolving needs. Seventy (70) million Americans live with a disability, according to the CDC. Twenty-three (23) million people with disabilities require lifetime support, affecting seventeen percent...
Blog
Madison Eubanks
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Dec 10, 2024
18 Stats to Know from Vanilla’s 2025 State of Estate Planning Report
In case you missed it, our recently released Vanilla’s 2025 State of Estate Planning Report is chock full of relevant facts and figures about what’s new and noteworthy in consumer mindsets around planning. This annual survey of 1,000 US consumers is designed to unlock insights about how people view their families and values as well as the role of advisors and technology in the context of estate planning. While the full report is well-worth a read, we also put together this skimmable roundup of some of the most important (and sometimes surprising) findings. Read the complete, ungated State of Estate...
Blog
Vanilla
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Dec 05, 2024
3 All New CE Courses Now Available in Vanilla Academy
The best advisors (and, truthfully, our favorite people) are the curious ones—they dig in, ask questions, and are always learning. They want to bring clients great advice that’s backed by education, experience, and perspective. For all the lifelong learners out there, Vanilla is your partner for refreshing, broadening, honing, brushing up, mastering, reviewing, or just dipping your toes into estate planning topics and skills. Vanilla Academy launched earlier this year as an estate planning learning hub for advisors who want to up-level their offering and show clients a breadth of expertise, and we’ve just added three additional courses to the...
Blog
Sarah D. McDaniel, CFA
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Dec 03, 2024
A New Year, a New Approach: How to use estate planning to keep...
Let’s face it—most people procrastinate. Deadlines are often the only motivators that spur action, and for financial planning, this “crunch time” tends to hit in November and December. Unfortunately, this end-of-year rush isn’t ideal for a number of reasons: The holidays: Advisors and clients alike are juggling travel, vacations, and family obligations. Emotional rollercoasters: Whether it’s the stress of family reunions or the joy of celebrations, emotions can cloud judgment. Rushed decisions: Big-picture financial planning requires clarity and focus, neither of which are easy to achieve in a hectic environment. The result? A less-than-optimal setup for making critical long-term decisions....
Blog
Vanilla
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Nov 13, 2024
Estate Planning for Business Owners: Strategies and Solutions for Wealth Advisors
There are over 33 million small businesses in the United States, employing over 60 million people. In many ways, private businesses are the heart and soul of the country’s economy, and—unsurprisingly—business owners often feel passionately about what happens to their share when they pass away. Wealth advisors should be prepared to help their business-owning clients create a thoughtful succession plan, regardless of the size or value of their business. In a recent webinar, estate planning experts Steve Lockshin and Patrick Carlson sat down to discuss everything from foundational concepts to advanced strategies wealth advisors should consider for clients who own...
Blog
Madison Eubanks
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Oct 24, 2024
An Intro to Revocable and Sub-Trusts for Estate Planning
A sub-trust, often created within a larger trust, is a type of estate planning tool that can allow you to customize how portions of your estate are managed and distributed to specific beneficiaries. They can add both flexibility and control to your plan, bringing peace of mind that your estate will be distributed according to your wishes and your beneficiaries will be cared for. Whether you want to set aside funds for minor children, protect a special needs beneficiary, or create tax-efficient structures, sub-trusts offer a tailored approach to address the unique needs of your family. In this blog post,...
Blog
Madison Eubanks
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Sep 19, 2024
6 Estate Planning Scenarios: When to Use Which Strategy
Estate planning strategies are like tools in a toolbox: Different tools do different jobs. Deciding which estate planning strategies to employ depends on any number of personal factors including (but not limited to) marital status, level of wealth, whether or not someone has children, charitable inclination, liquidity, and many more. A savvy planner takes all these variables into account and chooses the most appropriate tool for a person’s situation, values, and goals. In this article, we provide fictional examples of when someone might use six different trust strategies, and illustrate how the right strategy can achieve their estate planning goals. ...
Blog
Madison Eubanks
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Sep 10, 2024
What to Know About Gifting: Taxes, Returns, and Exclusions
For the ultra wealthy, a well-planned gifting strategy can be a great way to reduce the size of the taxable estate over time. However, various tax laws mean gifting isn’t always as straightforward as it may sound. When gifting, it’s important to understand annual and lifetime exclusions, when gifts must be reported to the IRS, and how to plan for tax exposure. Read on for a complete overview of gifting. For a deeper dive on gifting strategies, download the Vanilla Guide to Gifting here. Introduction to gifting In the eyes of the IRS, a gift is any property or assets...