Welcome to the Main Street Business Podcast with your distinguished hosts, Mark J. Kohler and Matt Sorensen.

Both are bestselling authors and have over 25 years of industry experience with 10,000 client consultations,

making them the leading tax and legal experts in the nation. Together, they'll unpack the most

complex tax, legal, and financial strategies, crucial for saving more, stressing less,

and building generational wealth. Today, they're your personal advisors, ready to break it down

for you and make the tax and legal game easier than ever. Here is Mark and Matt.

Welcome everybody to the Main Street Business Podcast. My name is Mark Kohler. I'm here with

the illustrious Matt Sorensen. Excide today to talk about that special time of year, the Memorial Day, and the estate planning special. I was like that a special time when we're talking about dying. Sorry, we want to think of our loved ones, those that have passed before us. But we also want to remind you. This is time. You need to plan for your you will die one day. I hate to tell you that. So let's plan for it and leave a legacy and not a freaking disaster. I love it. Yeah. It's an exciting time. Exciting times. Yeah. And regrettably, 50% of Americans don't even have a will. This is not something that should fall on deaf ears.

I know there's going to be many of you listening today. They're like, I got to get this done. What do I need to know? So we're going to break it down. Matt, let's go hard. Will versus trust. I'll be Mac. You'll be PC. Tell us about the will. You get about that? The will is the PC here, but that's fair.

The boring PC.

The will says who gets your stuff when you die.

It at least... the will you get about that the will is the PC here but that's fair the boring PC the will says

who gets your stuff when you die it at least does that so that's one feature of the will i can

keep going if you'd like yeah yeah what you name a few get yourself pitch here's the other thing

that i like about the will is you can designate who is the guardian of your children after you pass

away really critical for any of you that have minor children to say, who is going to take care of them when I passed away? Okay. We'll just riff on the will for a minute. A will can also be holographic. I mean, at the very least, I would recommend all of you sit down this weekend and handwrite out a will, which means holographic. You can't do it on word processor printed out. You've got to handwrite it out, get a couple witnesses, but at least say who gets what. Who gets what? Who gets what? Who's going to raise my kids? Yeah. What else? Yeah. And even the holographic, I'll say, in 46 states, as long as just in your handwriting and signed by you, you don't even need witnesses. But in the other states, you do.

Here's where the will starts breaking down. in 46 states, as long as it's in your handwriting and signed by you, you don't even need witnesses.

But in the other states, you do. Here's where the will starts breaking down, though. There's not much left. If you want to have a lot of other features and bells and whistles, you're going to need to roll over to the trust. After you say who gets what, there's not a lot of great features. Here's the problem, though, that most people don't like about the will and why they do a trust instead. You're going to probate with that

will. Just because I have a will that sign that says who gets my stuff doesn't mean we get to go

carry that out and do it. You still have to take the will to the judge and get the judge's

stamp of approval to say,

I approve this will and they'll issue these things called letters testamentary that allows the executor of the will to then distribute the assets. It's public. It's not great. And that

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