The Fine Print of Beneficiary Designations
Big Picture Retirement®
Devin Carroll
4.7 • 546 Ratings
🗓️ 12 August 2022
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Beneficiary designations seem straightforward at first glance. Just fill out a form naming the people you wish to inherit your account in the event that you pass away.
Seems simple enough, right?
What lurks in the background is some nuance contained within these designations that may result in unexpected outcomes.
Two examples:
-Not properly designating per stirpes vs. pro rata can actually lead to accidentally disinheriting members of your family that you had NO intention of cutting out
-Leaving a trust as the beneficiary can be the perfect solution or the worst solution (depending on the language in your trust)
In this episode, John and Devin discuss how to ensure your assets will be passed in accordance with your desires (without leaving a tax bomb as a parting gift).
Although this show does not provide specific tax, legal, or financial advice, you can engage Devin or John through their individual firms.
Contact Devin's team at https://www.carrolladvisory.com/
Contact John's team at https://www.rossandshoalmire.com/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Big Picture Retirement Show does not provide tax, legal, or financial advice. |
| 0:04.3 | Listeners are encouraged to seek out their own advisors in these areas. |
| 0:11.0 | Hey, everyone. |
| 0:11.9 | Welcome to The Big Picture Retirement Show. |
| 0:13.6 | I'm your host, Devin, joined as I always am by John Ross. |
| 0:18.1 | Howdy. |
| 0:19.1 | Okay, John, beneficiary designation seems pretty straightforward. |
| 0:23.6 | You would think. |
| 0:24.5 | If you're going to die, these are the people you want to get your stuff, but there's some nuance hidden in there. |
| 0:30.1 | Oh, yeah. |
| 0:31.2 | And I've recently discovered some of that in a case that we had. |
| 0:34.8 | And then after talking to you about this case, come to find out it's even deeper than I thought. |
| 0:40.1 | Right. And it's probably even deeper than that. And I will say this, this entire discussion is going to boil down to one of what I would consider the most fundamental mistake in estate planning. Right. And that is the planning for what you hope happens. |
| 0:56.1 | Planning for the best case scenario, right? And this is, I've gotten into, I've gotten into |
| 1:01.3 | arguments with other financial advisors, ones that are not nearly as, as smart as you are. |
| 1:07.4 | No, they're hard to find. No, they're hard to find. They're definitely, Where they say, you know, John, why do you need to do all this sophisticated planning? |
| 1:13.9 | I already have the client's beneficiaries named on the accounts. |
| 1:18.1 | Right. |
| 1:18.7 | Well, of course, we're, we're, his, his fundamental assumption right there, right? |
| 1:23.1 | Is that those three kids of his account holder are going to be alive, not disabled, in a stable |
| 1:30.5 | marriage, debt-free, not have creditors at their throat, right? I mean, all of these other, |
| 1:36.4 | you know, there's just a whole lifetime of issues out there, right? Right. And they're not |
... |
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