For many, estate planning tends to be an affair of numbers.  How much are you worth?  What can be done minimize the exposure of your estate to taxation?  And while there’s no doubt that questions about estate and gift taxes are an important consideration in estate planning, ensuring that your legacies are handled as you want them to be requires one to dig a little deeper.

Question: Where did your values come from?  Who influenced them?

The obvious answer here is probably your parents and your family.  But a second grade teacher or church pastor or co-worker could also have profoundly shaped the way you see the world.  The point here is to start to dig deeper into your values, to gain a deeper understanding of them, so that you can shape your estate planning to best follow those beliefs and principles.

Question: What are the three values or aspects of life that are the most important to you?

For some people there’s nothing more important that family, integrity, or hard work.  For others life is about friendship or spirituality.  Whatever your answers are, they will provide an important glimpse into what matters to you in a meaningful way.  And what matters to you should help affect your estate planning.

Question: Have you tried to impart your core values to your children?

Now we’re starting move from the theoretical, to the practical.  Illinois law provides that in the absence of an admissible will, a descendant’s estate is divided up half to the spouse, and the remainder divided evenly among the children.  It can be tough, considering whether or not your children are likely to do with your estate as you would like them to.  If you are concerned, that’s important to know when you’re planning your estate, especially when it comes to matters like naming an executor.

Question: What are your goals in life?  Have you achieved want you wanted to?

This the big one.  It’s a broad question and the potential answers are infinite, but this is an essential consideration in estate planning.  We are all mortal but our legacies long outlive us.  It can be a comforting thought to know that we have made it so that even if we cannot do all that we hoped during our lives, our estate will further those pursuits after we are gone.

Next post:  end of life issues

For more information on estate planning or other estate and probate issue, contact the Chicago estate lawyers at Horowitz & Weinstein.

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