Estate Planning
In simple terms, estate planning addresses how assets are distributed at death. But the purpose of the sophisticated Hop Planning Process™ is much more than this, because our clients have much more at stake.
The Hop Planning Process™ is designed to take a more detailed, and more comprehensive approach so that you can make sound decisions about all of your assets – not just your financial assets. Relationships are at stake. Business futures are at stake. The impact to communities and important causes can be at risk.
Personal and business financial assets require careful planning to ensure that they are handled in a manner that you desire, because in the absence of planning, they are handled the way the Province desires – you can die planned, or unplanned. But worse than this, without a properly designed and executed estate plan, businesses can be thrown into turmoil, families can experience frustration or long-lasting rifts, and charitable organizations that you wanted to support may be disappointed.
Estate Planning Addresses 3 Key Areas:
Wealth Transfer
Passing wealth on to the next generation is far more complicated than most people realize. There are numerous considerations that require an informed, and often delicate, approach. There are issues of estate equalization between children, family complexities and dynamics, tax issues and more.
For example, if one child is to receive the business or a specific asset, how will you equalize the estate for the other children or family members?
There are both financial issues and emotional issues to address, which are difficult to handle without clarifying your Values, Vision, Mission and Goals.
Business Succession
The majority of our clients have built a great deal of their wealth through their business(es) and they view those wealth sources as a cornerstone to their estate. However, clear plans are required to protect the future of those assets.
Ultimately, there are only a few business succession choices:
- pass the business on to your children
- sell it to your employees
- sell it to a third party
- wind up the business
- some combination of these four
Regardless of the decision, the business succession strategy must be integrated into the family wealth plan in order to have an orderly succession that doesn’t throw the business, or the family, into disarray. It’s also critical to plan contingencies that would address untimely death or disability.
That’s why a full exploration of the current succession plan for the business, or extensive support in further developing it, are integral parts of the Hop Planning Process™.
Philanthropic Gifting
When you have addressed all your Estate Planning, Business Succession and Wealth Transfer concerns, your attention may turn toward Philanthropic Gifting.
Philanthropic Gifting involves making contributions toward social capital such as charitable organizations that our clients would like to support. There are clearly ways that you can leave a legacy and build a philanthropic structure into perpetuity. There are very advanced methods that work with assets in such a way as to provide significant philanthropic support, while minimizing tax implications and still ensuring that the family has ample financial resources into the future.
More and more affluent families are actively planning to make philanthropic use of their wealth. For example, The Giving Pledge is an initiative where wealthy families are committing a percentage of their wealth to philanthropy, following the examples of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.
After the needs of our families, our businesses, and our next generations have been handled, arguably the highest level of service is to the needs of our communities and human kind. When you enter this conversation, we’re well equipped to support you with solid analysis, developing intelligent strategies, and helping you put the components in place to ensure it happens.