Your clients have completed a Will using GoGo Estate. As a helpful resource to financial advisors, we have put together this Financial Advisor Guide to help you know the best course of action now that your clients have created Wills. Nothing in this Guide should be construed as legal advice, and you should not exclusively rely on this document when helping your clients with their Wills.

This Guide is broken into two parts. The first provides you with important information about their Durable General Power of Attorney. The second outlines how your clients should designate beneficiaries to their assets.

Durable General Power of Attorney

There may be important information contained in your clients' Durable General Powers of Attorney obtained through GoGo Estate that are important for your records. We have compiled information that most financial institutions like to know when dealing with their clients' powers of attorney:

Name of Agent(s): Ask your client who they have designated as agent under their Durable General Power of Attorney

Co-Agents? No

Withdrawals: Agents can make withdrawals by any means and for any purpose

Self-Gifts: Agents can make self-gifts by any means and for any purpose

Margin Loans: Agents can use assets as collateral to obtain margin loans

Beneficiary Designations: Agents can designate or change beneficiaries

If there is other information that you need as it pertains to the Trust Plan, please ask your clients and they can provide you with the appropriate documentation.

Designating Beneficiaries

The most important aspect of planning with a will is to help your clients properly designate beneficiaries. When your clients have proper beneficiaries to their assets, when the client dies those assets will be directly distributed to such beneficiaries without going through probate. And since the purpose behind proper estate planning is to avoid probate, it is important that you help your clients designate beneficiaries to their assets.

For married clients, if they have separate accounts or retirement plans with you, then it is advisable to name beneficiaries as follows:

  1. Primary Beneficiary: Spouse
  2. Contingent Beneficiary: Children or others

For other clients (i.e., those that are not married), then their primary and contingent beneficiaries should be whomever they designate.

It is important to review beneficiary designations with your clients frequently. If one of their beneficiaries dies, you should remind your clients that they need to change their beneficiaries. The same rule is true when a spouse inherits the assets of their significant other via beneficiary designation. If this scenario applies, then the surviving spouse will need to relist beneficiaries.

Rules for Taxable Accounts

Your client's estate cannot be named beneficiary to their taxable accounts (i.e., IRAs, 401(k)s). Instead, they must name an individual beneficiary who will receive these assets upon death. Remember that taxable accounts are subject to the SECURE Act. Prior to the SECURE Act, beneficiaries to inherited accounts could stretch-out the accounts for the remainder of their lives. That is not the case anymore. Now, inherited taxable accounts must be distributed within 10 years of the owner's death. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule:

  1. Surviving Spouse: The surviving spouse can stretch-out the taxable account for the remainder of their life just like the rules pre-SECURE Act.
  2. Minor Children: Before they obtain the age of majority, the 10-year drawdown rule does not apply. Once they reach the age of majority + one year, however, then they must withdraw the full amount within 10 years.
  3. Disabled Beneficiaries: Disabled beneficiaries (as defined by the Code) can stretch out the taxable account for the remainder of their lifetime like the rules pre-SECURE Act.

All other beneficiaries to taxable accounts will be subject to the 10-year drawdown rules.