Estates & Trusts

You have worked years to create a financial legacy for your family and causes important to you. Ensuring that the full value of your life’s work is passed on requires deliberate planning and management starting today.

Successful estate planning involves the careful coordination and execution of three key areas:

• Tax Planning
  • A large portion of your estate can be diverted to the IRS instead of the people and causes important to you. However, a strategic tax plan can minimize, and in some cases, eliminate your beneficiaries’ tax bill.
• Legal Structure
  • Probate and extensive legal battles can cost your beneficiaries substantial time and money. Determining the legal structure that is best for your finances depends on your intentions as well as your current financial holdings. With careful legal planning and precise documents, you can limit legal battles, avoid probate and more carefully control your legacy’s destination.
• Investment Management
  • Portfolios should support your current needs as well as your intentions for the future. RBF Wealth Advisors' strategic management helps deliver the financial package that best supports your needs now and your beneficiaries’ future needs-- such as an income stream for a loving spouse or a lump-sum payment for a philanthropic research endeavor.

RBF Wealth Advisors removes the time burden and stress of managing these key providers by handling the coordination for you. We meet with you to develop a detailed understanding of your intentions and your beneficiaries’ needs. Then, we work with you and your tax and legal providers to develop a comprehensive estate and trust strategy. Finally, we manage your assets to best support your legacy goals before, and if appropriate, after your estate has been settled.

Unfortunately, without careful planning an unmanaged estate can leave a family with all kinds of challenges:

• High tax bill and in some cases, illiquid assets to pay the bill.
• Long and expensive legal battle to claim assets that were intended for them.
• Family disagreements about intentions due to unclear documents.
• Misdirected spending as beneficiaries burn through their inheritance without proper financial guidance and investment allocation.

With a small investment of your time and an effective strategy, our goal is to develop an individual plan to avoid these pitfalls--minimizing taxes and improving your capabilities to pass along your wealth to future generations.