Wills & trusts
Will or trust: what would make life easier for your family?
Different tools, different jobs. Understand how wills and trusts work together, and what neither document does on its own.
Read guide · 3 min readThe Bloodline journal
Insights
Explore the library
30 articles
Probate02
You have a will. Will your family still face probate?
A practical explanation of the court process, the property it may cover, and why having a will is only part of the picture.
Read guide · 3 min readWills & trusts03
You signed your trust. Is your home actually in it?
A signed trust is the beginning. Learn how ownership records and beneficiary designations connect your assets to your plan.
Read guide · 3 min readYour people04
Your will says one thing. Your retirement account may say another.
Retirement accounts, insurance, and transfer-on-death accounts follow their own instructions. Here is how to check for gaps.
Read guide · 3 min readPlanning ahead05
If you couldn’t speak for yourself, who would handle the bills?
Who handles the bills, and who speaks with doctors? These are different responsibilities that call for different planning.
Read guide · 3 min readYour people06
You love your oldest child. Does that make them the right trustee?
Look beyond the closest relative. Availability, judgment, organization, and the ability to handle difficult conversations all matter.
Read guide · 3 min readBusiness owners07
Your company could sell for millions. How much of the gain can you keep?
A practical guide to qualified small business stock: who qualifies, what changed in 2025, and the records founders and families should gather before an exit.
Read guide · 7 min readBusiness owners08
A business exit is coming. Can your family plan change the tax outcome?
QSBS stacking and packing explained: how ownership, trust design, and original-issue basis can affect an exclusion, and why timing matters more than a clever label.
Read guide · 8 min readBusiness owners09
Your shares might qualify for QSBS. Can you prove it?
How founders, employees, and families can protect a potential QSBS exclusion with better records, timely reviews, and careful ownership changes.
Read guide · 6 min readBusiness owners10
You built the business. What should happen when you leave?
Compare business exit strategies through the lens of family income, control, taxes, and continuity, before a buyer or an emergency sets the terms.
Read guide · 6 min readBusiness owners11
Your equity may finally become cash. What should you plan first?
A family-focused guide to liquidity events, from tender offers and acquisitions to public listings, with a checklist for taxes, ownership, and life after the payout.
Read guide · 6 min readBusiness owners12
A buyer wants your business. What are they actually buying?
How M&A structure, payment terms, and deal timing affect your proceeds, your continuing obligations, and the estate plan behind your ownership.
Read guide · 5 min readBusiness owners13
Could the people running your business become its next owners?
What a management buyout can offer a retiring owner, and how financing, conflicts, seller notes, and succession planning determine whether it works.
Read guide · 6 min readBusiness owners14
Your LLC pays the bills. Would that income keep reaching your family?
How LLC distributions work, why taxable income and cash are different, and what your family needs to know before inheriting a membership interest.
Read guide · 5 min readBusiness owners15
Your company can outlive you. Have you planned for who owns it next?
Understand corporate ownership, C and S corporation tax treatment, and the transfer rules that connect your company stock to your estate plan.
Read guide · 5 min readBusiness owners16
You invested through a SAFE. What would your family actually inherit?
What a SAFE promises, how conversion and dilution work, and why an early-stage investment needs its own place in your estate records.
Read guide · 5 min readBusiness owners17
Your company sent a QSBS letter. Is that all your family needs?
What a QSBS attestation can establish, what it leaves to your tax advisor, and how to make the review useful before a sale or inheritance.
Read guide · 5 min readTax & wealth18
Thinking about a family foundation? Know the rules before you fund it.
How private foundations are taxed, what they must distribute each year, and the self-dealing rules that catch well-meaning families.
Read guide · 5 min readTax & wealth19
Can a private foundation support your family? Here is what it can and cannot do.
A clear look at the claims made about foundations as income tools: salaries, withdrawals, tax savings, and what a family actually gains.
Read guide · 5 min readYour people20
If your spouse remarries after you are gone, who ends up with what you built?
How a surviving spouse's new marriage can redirect an inheritance meant for your children, and the trust tools that prevent it.
Read guide · 5 min readBusiness owners21
You spent a decade training to earn it. Is your plan built to keep it?
Tax, asset protection, and estate planning priorities for physicians, dentists, and other high-earning medical professionals.
Read guide · 4 min readWills & trusts22
Does your name need to be on every title you own?
What personal property trusts and land trusts do for privacy and probate, and why they are not, by themselves, asset protection.
Read guide · 4 min readTax & wealth23
A loss in your portfolio can lower your taxes. Waiting too long can erase it.
How tax-loss harvesting works, the wash-sale traps, and why losses and gains should be managed with your estate plan in mind.
Read guide · 4 min readPlanning ahead24
Your term life policy is only as good as the beneficiary line you filled out.
How term life insurance fits an estate plan: how much coverage, who should own it, and why naming the right beneficiary matters as much as the policy.
Read guide · 4 min readBusiness owners25
Self-employed with no staff? The Solo 401(k) may be your largest tax deduction.
How a one-participant 401(k) works, 2026 contribution limits, investing in real estate through the plan, and who inherits it.
Read guide · 6 min readTax & wealth26
A self-directed IRA can own real estate. One wrong move can make it all taxable.
What self-directed IRAs can hold, the prohibited transaction rules, taxes that still apply inside the account, and what your heirs inherit.
Read guide · 5 min readTax & wealth27
Before you wire money into a private deal, read these parts of the PPM.
How to read a private placement memorandum: the offering type, fees, distribution waterfall, operating agreement, and what your family inherits if you own the interest at death.
Read guide · 8 min readTax & wealth28
Borrowing from your whole life policy to buy real estate? Know what the loan really costs.
How whole life cash value works, how investors use policy loans to fund real estate, the tax traps that can make a loan taxable, and how the policy fits your estate plan.
Read guide · 7 min readBusiness owners29
Split-dollar life insurance lets your company help pay for your policy. The IRS has rules for every dollar.
How split-dollar arrangements divide the cost and benefits of a permanent policy, the two tax regimes that apply, why C corporation pitches deserve scrutiny, and how families use private split-dollar in estate planning.
Read guide · 8 min readBusiness owners30
Raising money for your first syndication? You are selling securities, and your estate plan needs to know it.
A sponsor's guide to structuring a real estate syndication: deal types, the entity stack, Regulation D compliance, fees and promote, loan guarantees, and who runs the deal if you cannot.
Read guide · 8 min readYour next step
Turn understanding into a plan.
Start with your family, your priorities, and the people you trust.