Sitting down with an estate planning attorney means investing a significant amount of time and energy learning technical legal and tax strategies, options, and implications. The initial meetings will outline the value of trusts, how much you can give, and the vehicles that can protect assets from creditors and preserve them for heirs. These are important issues worthy of thoughtful consideration. At times, however, “estate planning fatigue” sets in, and a larger point is left unstated and unaddressed: The estate plan will mature at an unknown moment in the future.

Because it is impossible to know the point at which an estate plan will go into effect, it is also impossible to know the legal and tax landscape in which the plan will need to operate. Further, we cannot predict the health, well-being, or financial position of family members or unborn descendants who may benefit from the vehicles set up in the estate plan. For these reasons, tax and trusts are mere pieces of a well-rounded plan. It is just as, if not more, important that the legal documents create a plan that is flexible enough to reflect your values and accomplish your goals both now and into the future. In other words, the plan must be resilient.

Be tax-aware, not tax-driven

A resilient estate plan should be informed, but not necessarily controlled, by tax planning .

The federal estate tax rate is currently at 40%, with an exemption of $13.99 million per individual transferor. The gift and generation-skipping transfer tax rates and exemptions are the same. In some states, a separate state-level estate tax can boost the total tax to over 50% on transfers greater than $13.99 million. Absent legislative change (which is never a given), the federal exemption for each of these taxes is scheduled to decrease to approximately $5 million, indexed for inflation, on January 1, 2026. Clearly, tax efficiency is of major importance in an estate plan.

Tax efficiency in estate planning has traditionally meant making large gifts during life, leaving everything above your remaining exemption amount to your surviving spouse at death, and holding assets in trust, rather than distributing them outright. However, there are many reasons why traditional approaches to tax efficiency might not make sense for your situation.

For example, if your plan contemplates the transfer of assets to grandchildren and more remote descendants, it is impossible to know how traditional planning may affect these individuals and how the plan might work for (or against) them. Layering on charitable intent, both yours and that of future generations, adds complexity.

Build flexibility into your plan

The future is unknown. Premature death, disability, natural disasters, significant financial success, addiction, divorce , and tax law changes are all possible future events, yet traditional tax planning assumes all families share the same future, goals, and values. A study by the Williams Group found that many wealth transfers are at risk of failure (where failure is defined as a loss of family control over the wealth) due to nuanced causes, such as the breakdown of family communication and trust, inadequately prepared heirs, or a lack of established family mission , values, and goals.¹

For these reasons, when wealth preservation is a goal, it is crucial to construct an estate plan that enables you and your family to adjust as circumstances change. Without flexibility, even the most technically sound estate plan may become obsolete in the face of reality.

A resilient estate plan may include some or all of the following features:

Select your fiduciary with care

To develop a resilient estate plan, carefully consider who to name as your fiduciary . Given the duties associated with the position – and in the case of a trustee, the level of discretion connected to a flexible, long-term trust – the choice of who will serve in this role, and the amount of information you provide to this individual or institution at the time you create and execute the plan, might be the most important decision you will make throughout the estate planning process.

First, you should understand what your fiduciary’s responsibilities will be. There are many professional and procedural jobs a fiduciary must complete in addition to the perhaps daunting task of managing family dynamics and requests for distributions. Every state has a different set of laws, but in each state, failing to fulfill one’s fiduciary duties can result in a lawsuit and personal liability.

A fiduciary must review and understand the document by which they are appointed – a last will and testament or a trust agreement. This will likely require some guidance from an attorney in the case of an individual fiduciary. The fiduciary must also identify and understand the assets of the trust or estate because they will be responsible for managing those assets, which may be as simple as hiring a financial advisor to invest cash or as complicated as running an operating business until a competent successor is identified. Therefore, it is important to consider what your assets are and who would be best positioned to manage them in your absence. Filing tax returns and preparing accountings of trust and estate activity also fall to the fiduciary and will likely require professional assistance.

On the “softer” side, a trustee is required to act in the best interests of the beneficiaries, to be impartial to the extent there are conflicting interests among beneficiaries, and to communicate with the beneficiaries. These duties become particularly relevant where a trustee has authority to make discretionary distributions to one or more beneficiaries. Beneficiaries may request distributions, fight among each other about distributions, or have differing opinions on how trust assets should be invested – and the trustee may find themself in the middle of these disagreements.

People often name family members as fiduciaries because it is a common choice and because those are the people we trust most; however, in selecting a fiduciary, it is important to consider not only the professional responsibility and liability associated with the position, but also the dynamic you want the trustee to have with the beneficiaries. It may be a family member, or it may be a corporate fiduciary that will not face personal or emotional angst as a result of its objective decisions.

One option that represents a middle ground is to give a family member you trust the power to remove and replace a corporate trustee. Alternatively, you could name a family member and a corporate fiduciary to serve as co-trustees.

Whatever your decision, it is good practice to communicate with the person or entity you wish to name to ensure that everyone is on the same page about the role and responsibility associated with the job, as well as the values you wish to pass on to future generations through your estate plan.

Identify your values

An enduring estate plan is built around core values – the “why” behind estate planning decisions.

A good place to begin is with a family timeline, identifying how values have shaped your family’s history and listing and prioritizing the items that truly matter to you. Questions to ask can include:

• What recurring values-based messages did you hear growing up? 
• What messages do you want to pass along to the next generation? 
• Where do you spend your time and your financial capital?

Next, start building a plan around those values. For example, if you want your kids to be philanthropic , it is best not to simply leave them a pool of charitable assets and expect them to operate a foundation without any prior guidance. In their younger years, communicate about how and why you give, and include them in your site visits and charitable giving decisions. With this approach, your values will be instilled in the next generation organically. They may take an interest in a different type of charity, but they will carry on your legacy of philanthropy.

Communicate with your family

The estate planning process involves not only what goes into the plan, but what you do with it once it is complete. In this regard, communication with family members is vital. Without effective, thoughtful communication, your family risks losing control of its wealth, which happens to approximately 70% of families by the second generation, according to the same study by the Williams Group. In 97% of those cases, the loss of control related to a lack of communication, while poor legal, tax, and/or investment advice was to blame in just 3% of cases.³

You can hedge against this risk of loss with a robust communication plan that establishes the family’s mission, builds and retains trust, and adequately prepares heirs to become responsible stewards of the family’s wealth.

Conclusion

Successful estate planning is about more than tax efficiency. One way to mitigate the unpredictable nature of the future is to create a resilient plan that meets your family’s needs through succeeding generations. You can achieve this by embracing flexibility, centering your plan on your values, and communicating with your fiduciaries and your family.