They say that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, but if you teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime. This is something that you may want to keep in mind when you are crafting your legacy.
You can provide financial resources to your loved ones, but there are cases when doing so can do more harm than good. If you were to provide a life-changing sum of money to a family member who has not yet completed his or her education this individual may have no incentive to do so. As a result, he or she may never realize the potential that lies within.
Making education available to your family members can provide you with some tax benefits while you extend a helping hand. You can pay the school tuition of students as a tax-free gift. While doing so you would be reducing the value of your estate for estate tax purposes.
Another interesting possibility is to make a younger family member the beneficiary of an incentive trust that includes stipulations regarding the completion of educational benchmarks.
Some individuals will reach beyond their families and create memorial scholarships in an effort to provide ongoing educational opportunities to members of the community.
Providing educational pathways can be quite rewarding. If you are interested in doing so the wise course of action would be to sit down and discuss your options with an experienced Northern KY estate planning lawyer.
John’s practice focuses on the use of Wills and Living Trusts in Estate Planning to help individuals protect their families and preserve their legacies after their deaths, but his practice also focuses on the critical issues of protecting individuals with dementia or other diminished capacity, assisting individuals in qualifying for Medicaid and other government benefits to offset the costs of long-term care, and providing special needs planning.
John is admitted to practice law in North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Ohio, and he is accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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