The documents are only half of it. Titling is the other half.

Federal estate tax affects few households. Estate planning affects all of them.

For 2025 the federal basic exclusion amount was $13,990,000 per person.¹ Under the federal tax legislation enacted in 2025, the exclusion is $15,000,000 per person beginning in 2026, indexed for inflation thereafter, replacing the scheduled reduction that had been set for the end of 2025.²

North Carolina imposes no state estate tax or inheritance tax; the state estate tax was repealed and does not apply to decedents dying on or after January 1, 2013.⁴ If you own property in another state, that state’s rules may still apply.

So for most households this is not a tax exercise. It is a control exercise: who decides, who receives, when they receive it, and how much friction the process creates for the people left behind. Gallup polling has put the share of U.S. adults with a will at roughly 46%.³

Where estate plans actually break

In review after review, the same handful of failures appear:

• Stale beneficiary designations. Retirement accounts, annuities and life insurance pass by contract. The designation beats the will, every time.
• An unfunded trust. A revocable trust that was drafted but never had assets retitled into it does very little of what it was drafted to do.
• No contingent beneficiary. When the primary predeceases and no contingent is named, the asset frequently lands in the estate and back into probate.
• Missed portability. A surviving spouse can generally carry over the deceased spouse’s unused exclusion, but only if an estate tax return is filed to make the election, even when no tax is owed.
• Nothing for incapacity. Most families need the financial power of attorney, the healthcare power of attorney and the advance directive long before they need the will.

Inherited retirement accounts changed

Under the SECURE Act, most non-spouse beneficiaries who inherit a retirement account must fully distribute it within ten years, rather than stretching distributions over their own life expectancy. For a child in peak earning years, that can concentrate a decade of taxable income into a period when their bracket is at its highest.

This changes what a “fair” split looks like. Leaving the traditional IRA to one child and the Roth or taxable account to another is not an equal bequest, and which asset a charity should receive is now an easier question to answer well.

Gifting while you are alive

The annual gift tax exclusion was $19,000 per recipient for 2025, and payments made directly to a medical provider or educational institution are generally excluded entirely regardless of amount.⁵ For families with the capacity, lifetime gifting moves both the asset and its future growth out of the estate while letting you see the result.

How we work with your attorney

We do not draft documents and we do not give legal advice. What we do is produce the balance sheet your attorney needs: every account, how each is titled, who is named on each, and what each is worth. Then we implement the retitling and designation changes once the documents are signed, and re-verify them at review meetings. If you do not have an attorney, we will help you find one.