Planning for What You Leave Behind
We help you check that your accounts, beneficiary forms and estate documents reflect what you want for your family and business.
Start With Your Beneficiary Forms
Beneficiary designations override your will. If the form on an old retirement account names a former spouse, a deceased parent, or nobody at all, that is what governs, no matter what the will says. It costs nothing to look, and it is the first thing we go through.
The Financial Half
The part that connects to everything else we do. It runs under a planning engagement.
Beneficiary Review
We go through every account with you and show you what each one currently says. Designations override a will, so this is where intentions and paperwork most often disagree.
Asset Flow Map
One page showing where each asset would go and by what mechanism: designation, joint title, trust or will. It gives you and your family a clear reference.
Survivor Income
What the surviving spouse actually lives on, and what changes in the first year: a lost Social Security check, single filing status, compressed brackets.
Transfer Tax
Which assets are efficient to inherit and which arrive with a bill attached. Step-up in basis, inherited IRA rules, and the ten-year window heirs now face.
Charitable Giving
Where giving is part of the plan: gifts straight from an IRA after 70½, appreciated assets given instead of cash, and a level of giving the rest of the estate can sustain.
The Family Business
How your ownership passes, whether the buy-sell agreement and the estate documents agree, and what the children outside the business receive instead.
Done Here, With You in the Room
We coordinate wills, trusts and powers of attorney here and work through the process with you.
We are not a law firm and we do not give legal advice. Where your situation calls for an attorney, we will help you arrange that review.
The Next Generation
An inheritance is easier to receive well when the people receiving it know what is coming and why. Where a family wants it, we help start that conversation, covering who will be responsible for what and what the money is meant to do.
When a business is part of the estate, the conversation includes who will run it, who will own it, and whether those are the same people.
For families who want this governed by a named framework, legacy and generosity are two of the seven pillars of the Joseph Method™.
Estate decisions are retirement decisions wearing a different hat.
A Roth conversion made for your own bracket also changes what your children inherit and what they pay on it. Naming a trust as beneficiary of an IRA can undo the outcome you had in mind. A document can be perfectly valid and still produce a result you never intended, if nobody was looking at your tax position and your income plan at the same time.
Common Questions
Do beneficiary designations override a will?
They do. If the form on an old retirement account names a former spouse, a deceased parent, or nobody at all, that is what governs, regardless of what the will says. It is the most common way an estate plan produces an outcome nobody intended.
Are you a law firm?
Savino & Associates is not a law firm, does not employ attorneys, and does not practice law. No communication with the firm creates an attorney-client relationship or attracts attorney-client privilege. Where your situation calls for an attorney, we will say so.
Do you handle the documents, or do I need to find a lawyer?
We coordinate wills, trusts and powers of attorney as part of the work here. Matters identified as complex are routed for attorney review.
Do Your Documents and Your Accounts Still Agree?
We can help you review how your documents and accounts fit together. Start with a brief conversation about your plans for your family.