Most inheritance planning starts and ends with the will: who gets what. Far fewer conversations get to the second question, which is how much of it actually arrives intact after tax. By the time an estate is being settled, most of the tools that reduce that tax bill are no longer available to use, because they only work if they’re built in ahead of time, not applied retroactively after someone has passed.
A few examples of what that looks like in practice: income splitting structures that shift taxable income to family members in lower brackets, trusts that control both the timing and the tax treatment of a transfer, and simply spreading a transfer across multiple tax years instead of triggering it all in one, which is often the single biggest lever available. None of these are complicated once they’re identified, but they all require lead time. The families who end up with the most preserved for the next generation aren’t the ones with the largest estates, they’re the ones who had this conversation years before it was needed rather than in the middle of settling one.
Want to pass on more and lose less to tax? Reach out to Brandi at HGA Wealth.
