Designating Beneficiaries of Retirement AccountsDesignating Beneficiaries of Retirement Accounts

One of the most troublesome, anxiety-producing and perhaps least profitable areas of the modern estate-planning practice is planning properly for the ultimate distribution of clients’ retirement accounts on death. Yet, our clients often have significant retirement account assets in proportion to their overall wealth, making this area of estate planning one of the most important to address and to get right. A combination of factors leads to the annoyance and anxiety associated with planning for retirement accounts, including, most notably, confusing Treasury regulations, oddly reasoned private letter rulings, lack of uniformity among retirement account custodians and incredulous clients. Over time, I’ve developed some practical solutions ...