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Three Types of Legacy Planning Goals in Kansas

Weber Law July 14, 2018

Kansas Estate Planning Attorney Shares Three Types of Legacy Planning Goals in Kansas

A legacy plan is as unique as the person who is creating it. That said, there are three categories of legacy planning goals that work together to create a complete legacy plan. Depending upon the unique characteristics of your situation, you may want to set other legacy planning goals in addition to those in these three categories. Your attorney can help you select the legacy planning goals that will best serve your needs and make a plan that will accomplish them.

The first type of legacy planning goal is perpetual existence. You want your legacy to go on forever, and, depending upon the nature of what your legacy is, there may be multiple ways that you could go about making that happen. For example, if you own a business, you can structure it so that it can last forever, such as a corporation or a limited liability company. Some types of legacies, like trusts, may not be able to get set up so that they continue forever, and your attorney can help you understand whether there are alternative methods of taking the legacy that a trust or other type of entity that cannot last forever contains and giving it a longer or even indefinite lifespan.

The second type of legacy planning goal is to separate the principal of your legacy assets from the revenue that those legacy assets generate. Legacy assets are precisely that, your legacy, and you more than likely desire for them to be treated differently from the way that the revenue that they produce gets treated. It may be helpful to think of your legacy assets as the capstone of a pyramid, a top-level holding company that manages all of the businesses, assets, revenue, and other resources that come under it. The goal is to make a plan that will ensure that the capstone remains secure while allowing for movement of the other types of assets like revenue and investments.

The third type of legacy planning goal is separating those whom you seek to benefit from your legacy from those whom you place in control of managing that legacy. While in some cases, the two groups may overlap, it is generally in the best interest not only of preserving the legacy but also in promoting goodwill amongst the beneficiaries, to have people managing the legacy who do not benefit from it. Doing that reduces the potential for conflict between family members, as well as reduces the more practical tension between managing the assets for both long-term sustainability and short-term productivity.

If you would like to learn about estate planning, schedule a consultation with Kansas estate planning attorney J. Joseph Weber, P.A. You can make an appointment by calling our office, or by reaching out to us online. Our location in Wichita is open weekdays, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. We sometimes offer weekend or evening hours by appointment, as well as the opportunity to connect with us online through our website.