LORI B. POOLE BARTLETT

WEALTH MANAGEMENT

MAGGIE GIBSON KATZ TELLER

GEORGE S. SPARKS BARNES DENNIG

PANELISTS

APRIL 27, 2018 | ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER

2B ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER | APRIL 27, 2018

ESTATE PLANNING ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

Cincinnati Business Courier’s

Rob Daumeyer recently sat

down with a panel of experts

to discuss the importance of estate

planning. The panel shared about a

variety of topics from the benefits of

planning early to the new tax laws

and much more. The trio of experts

offered valuable insight based on

their depth of knowledge and experi-

ence with a diverse client base across

the region. Read on as we find out

more about estate planning and how

a trusted advisor or group of advi-

sors can work with you to develop a

personalized plan.

COURIER: We’ll go around the table, and say who you are, where you work and what you do. Then we’ll start with a broad question. Who should have an estate plan? And, does everybody that should have an estate plan have one?

MAGGIE GIBSON: My name is Maggie Gibson. I’m an estate planning attorney at the law firm Katz Teller. I specialize in estate planning, probate and trust ad-ministration.

LORI POOLE: I’m Lori Poole. I work at Bartlett Wealth Management. I am a prin-cipal, wealth advisor, and also a CFP®. I specialize in working with individuals and families in being good stewards of their wealth, and depending on their life goals, implementing whatever plan that takes.

GEORGE SPARKS: My name is George Sparks, and I’m a director at Barnes Dennig. I’m a CPA and a Personal Financial Specialist. I help our clients put together some of their financial planning and help work out the different pieces of their fi-nancial plan, making sure that they are all working together.

COURIER: Thank you so much for be-

ing here. There’s a lot to gain from this discussion, and a lot of changes I want to talk about. This question is for everybody. Who should have an estate plan, and do those people generally have one based on your experiences?

GIBSON: I think everyone should have an estate plan. We recommend that cli-ents, upon turning 18, put certain docu-ments in place that will operate during their life and other documents that will operate after their death. No matter what clients’ asset levels are, we recommend that clients upon becoming adults have estate plans. Then, our estate plans can grow with those clients as their family dynamics change and as their assets be-come more complex. In answer to your second question, I don’t think everyone has an estate plan that needs one. It’s not a fun topic to talk about, but we en-courage our clients to view this as a gift to the people coming after you, to make life a little easier for them after you’ve passed away.

POOLE: Also, it’s not only the estate plan, but it’s the power of attorney, and all those things that are so important, especially for that 18-year-old going off

to college. If something should happen to them, like a car wreck, or something hor-rendous, you want to make sure they have the proper plans and directives in place.

SPARKS: I would like to say that the estate plan is your opportunity to decide how you would like your life to play out. Without proper documents, and a plan, somebody else is going to decide that for you. So, I think it is best that you become pro-active in deciding how you want your estate and plan to be handled upon your death, and as you move on.

COURIER: What are some good ways to help clients begin to clarify their per-sonal investment goals and objectives? There are some strategies you can use. You said it’s not always the most com-fortable conversation in the world, but it’s very important, and you talk about doing it at age 18. It’s something that is going to be around 60 or 70 years. How do you start that conversation? And, how do you start this relationship with finan-cial advisors and estate planners?

SPARKS: I think a lot of it is trying to put your client at ease to understand that it can be a very daunting task, but just

PANELISTS

Maggie Gibson focuses her practice at Katz Teller on counseling individuals, families, non-profit organiza-tions, and closely-held businesses on probate, tax, and estate planning matters. She prepares estate plans that align with clients’ goals to provide for beneficiaries of an estate, minimize taxes, and name substitute financial and health care decision makers in the event of an indi-vidual’s incapacity. Prior to joining the estate planning team at Katz Teller, Maggie earned a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Notre Dame and worked as an elementary school teacher for four years. She holds a Master’s Degree in Education and a Law Degree from Loyola University Chicago. During law school, she was a member of the Loyola Law Journal and the Family Law Moot Court team, and her article, Remember the IDEA: A Call for Courts to Apply a Piecemeal Approach to Transition Litigation, was published by the Thomas Jefferson Law Review. Maggie is a member of the Junior League Club of Cincinnati and the Probate and Estate Law Attorneys group.

Lori B. Poole, CFP ® is a Principal and Wealth Advisor at Bartlett Wealth Management, a Cincinnati-based Registered Investment Advisor. She provides invest-ment management and financial planning services to high net worth individuals and their families, founda-tions, endowments and non-profit institutions. Lori also assists on the Environmental, Social, Governance investing strategy. She is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) and a National Social Security Advisor Certificate Holder.

Lori is a Cum Laude graduate of the University of Cincinnati with a BBA in Finance. She is a member of the Junior League of Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati Foundation Gift Planning Committee, Cincinnati Business and Professional Women’s Scholarship Fund, Economics Center Young Professionals Advisory Board, and ArtsWave Women’s Leadership Roundtable. Lori was a member of C-Change Class 11, a year-long leadership development program for emerging leaders in the Cincinnati area.

Lori joined Bartlett Wealth Management in 2009 and has 9 years of investment experience.

George has over 30 years of experience in public accounting. Throughout his career, George has worked closely with business owners and high net worth individuals to help clients take the long view when considering their overall financial plan.

His collaborative style and thoughtful nature provide his clients with peace of mind about their financial roadmap. For many clients, this includes personal and business tax planning while also incorporat-ing wealth, estate and retirement planning. Having an advisor who understands how all the pieces fit together and who can spark ideas for personal financial planning is the key to success.

George holds the Personal Financial Specialist (PFS) credential, which is earned by intensive study and examination. The PFS was established by the AICPA and certifies that George has the experi-ence, ethics and expertise to address his clients’ comprehensive financial planning needs, while keeping in mind the tax implications.

He is also a member of the Kenton County Parks and Recreation Board, Northern Kentucky University Alumni Association and con-tinues to serve Barnes Dennig’s many non-profit clients. He’s a past Committee Member of the Kenton County Judge Executive’s task force to reform the County’s Health Insurance Plan and the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Education Committee.

His professional memberships include the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Kentucky Society of Certified Public Accountants and the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants.

George holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Northern Kentucky University with a major in accounting.

Maggie GibsonAssociate, Katz Teller

Lori B. Poole, CFP®

Principal/ Wealth Advisor, Bartlett Wealth Management

George S. Sparks, CPA/PFSDirector, Barnes Dennig

APRIL 27, 2018 | ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER 3B

ESTATE PLANNING ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

staring the process and getting it to move. It’s going to be something that evolves throughout the course of your life. In try-ing to help them understand that while this can be very broad, you’re going to break it down into manageable pieces for them so that it’s not so overwhelming. It’s also important to ask the right questions.

POOLE: I start with questions and try to determine what their goals are. It can be hard if you just sit down and say, “What are your goals?” because most people don’t really know what their goals are. It is easier for clients to express their desires when faced with questions like, “What kind of legacy do want?”, “Do you have charitable intentions?” and “Where would you like to be in five years?” Asking open-ended questions and not having pre-conceived notions seems to be a success-ful way to approach it.

GIBSON: We encourage clients to break up their goals into two different sets - life-time goals and the legacy goals as Lori talked about. Lifetime goals include mak-ing sure you have enough assets to pro-vide for what you want and what you need during your lifetime - whether it’s retir-ing at a certain age or having a vacation

home. Then, the legacy goals cover “What beneficiaries, or what charities do you want to provide for after you pass away to leave your legacy?” We encourage clients to consider their family dynamics, chari-table giving, and any business succession planning needs that might apply to them.

POOLE: I think the lifetime goals piece is important as it relates back to the financial plan and putting time horizons on the dif-ferent goals. After you pull those out, you can decipher how you are going to struc-ture their portfolio and financial plan to be able to achieve those lifetime income goals and project what might be leftover. So, one really informs the other, back and forth, and it’s an evolving process.

COURIER: That’s a good way to segway into the next question. What kinds of tran-sitionary periods in somebody’s life would cause them to need to take a fresh look at their financial and estate plans?

POOLE: The first one that comes to mind for me, and what I work with a lot of clients on is any change in their fam-ily situation. So, marriage, divorce, birth of a child or grandchild, those tend to be easy places to start. Also, when a busi-

ness owner is buying or selling a busi-ness, you must work in all the different facets of their plan.

GIBSON: Let me just add that things like buying real estate, buying life insurance, retirement, loss of a spouse, or inheriting from others are other important factors to consider.

SPARKS: I’ve found that a lot of people are thinking about how they have to step in and help their parents. But, we should consider any lifechanging event. It’s about being in touch with your client, so you know what’s going on in their lives. Those conversations can trigger questions that the three of us need to be asking of our clients, so we can do what we need to be doing for them.

GIBSON: Many of our estate plans are amendable and revocable at any time, so we can grow with our clients through their life changes.

COURIER: Are financial plans and es-tate plans the same thing? If not, how far apart are they? How many conversations do you have about one without talking about the other?

POOLE: We talk about them together, but they are different. A lot of times our clients can take their financial plan and that will help inform the estate plan. Through the financial planning process, we can identify what your goals are through life and what may be left as a legacy, depending on what you’re spend-ing over the course of your life. It may look like you have a lot of money now, but you may not be projected to have that much leftover later in life, and that may change the way Maggie would work with you to structure your estate plan. It also helps us to evaluate some of the things you can do now versus later.

GIBSON: An example of Lori’s point is a client may meet with a financial advisor and tell them that their goal is to begin charitable giving. Then, that client and their financial advisor might come to an estate planner and we can all discuss the best method to achieve that charitable giving goal. It may be through a donor advised fund, a charitable lead trust, a charitable remainder trust, an outright bequest or an IRA distribution. We can all work together and execute a plan prop-

DISCUSSION, CONTINUED ON PAGE 4B

255 East Fifth Street, Suite 2400Cincinnati, OH 45202513.721.4532 | www.katzteller.com

E N E R G Y PA S S I O N C R E AT I V I T Y

At Katz Teller, we practice law with one thing in mind: Our Clients.

As clients, you motivate our decisions from the conceptual to thepractical, from our service model to how we welcome you offthe elevator when you visit us. We strive to deliver everything youwould choose if you could design a law firm.

For more than 30 years, our focus has been on providingthe highest quality legal service in the most responsivemanner possible. We know that you come to us forlegal advice and guidance for matters that areimportant in your life. That is why we put youin the hands of an attorney with the experienceneeded to handle your problem effectivelyand efficiently.

Building on our tax planning strength, Barnes Dennig delivers highly customized estate, wealth and succession planning by focusing on the unique goals and objectives of each person and customizing a plan to fit their needs.

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BarnesDennig.comOHIO

(513) 241-8313KENTUCKY

(859) 344-6400INDIANA

(317) 572-0694

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ESTATE PLANNING ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

erly with the legal documents that sup-port it.

COURIER: Are there any pitfalls? We talked about how you start these conver-sations but are there any broadly misun-derstood parts of estate planning that you hear about repeatedly. Maybe, there are pitfalls people don’t realize, whether it’s too much of something, or not enough of something that you see frequently and that you have to correct? Like saying to a client, “No, I know you’ve heard that, but this is not exactly what happens,” or is it more straightforward?

POOLE: One thing that I’ve seen, espe-cially out of Katz Teller in working with each of you, is the importance of using the correct vehicle or vehicles to execute a plan. For example, not just leaving a be-quest in your will to charity, but structur-ing your plan so that you name the charity as a beneficiary of your IRA, and your kids can have the assets in a trust or another type of account.

GIBSON: Clients may think that putting assets into a trust takes away the control

for themselves or their heirs or the abil-ity to retain an income interest in those assets, and that’s false. A client and his/her heirs can still benefit from assets and control those assets to a certain extent, even if they’ve been put away in a trust.

SPARKS: I think incorporating the tax piece into that, can mean taking a current deduction for certain types of charitable giving, or gifts in a trust are a way to take advantage of the tax planning piece. It’s about working together with all the advi-sors. One of the most important questions you can ask your client or prospective cli-ent is “What other advisors are you work-ing with?” “Who else do I need to talk to?” Because, each of us brings something dif-ferent to the table, and collectively work-ing together can help us all make the best decisions regarding a plan.

GIBSON: Right. Sometimes in the most cost-effective and efficient manner for the client.

COURIER: What are the differences be-tween long and short-term planning? How individualized is short-term planning ver-sus long-term planning? Or are there set ways on how you like to advise clients?

Some people, when they are age 40, like to live their life a certain way, and they don’t want to necessarily give that up. Other people may have very different feelings in that regard. Does that vary drastically from client to client, and what you would advise? Or do you essentially try to get clients to think more long-term if they’re not already thinking that way?

POOLE: I think all the goals are compet-ing. If you want to live your life as you sug-gest, or do something extravagant when you’re 40, that may be at the expense of something in your ’90s, if you live that long.

COURIER: What I’m asking is do you advise against short-term thinking?

POOLE: No, not necessarily. It is impor-tant to factor in all of the different goals. I think the biggest place that we would ad-vise against something or have someone reconsider is when there are too many competing goals. Then, we would help them prioritize their goals. At that time, we might decide to take a little bit away from the short-term goal, so you can meet your other long-term goals. But it’s always a process of getting buy-in from the client,

and making sure that along the way, you’re going to keep them satisfied. You don’t want to tell somebody that they can’t do that important thing they want to do when they’re 40, because maybe their long-term goals aren’t as important to them. So, it’s really making sure that everything works together.

GIBSON: Structuring our estate plans to meet both short-term and long-term goals at the same time is important for us. For example, with a trust, we can incor-porate some flexibility. During a client’s life they can be trustee and beneficiary of their trust, having complete access over the assets andthe ability to manage invest-ments, business interests and real estate. Then, in the long term, after the client has passed away, that trust would be held for the benefit of the surviving spouse and/or children. Then, the children can become trustees of their own share of the trust upon turning certain ages. We also build flexibility into the estate plan with things like powers of appointment, giving surviv-ing spouses and children the ability to redi-rect where and how assets pass after their death, sometimes well after the original grantor’s death, when life circumstances may have changed significantly.

DISCUSSION, FROM PAGE 3B

The Courier’s Industry Roundtables provide the opportunity to take part in a panel discussion of trends and issues in specific industries from some of the area’s most prominent and knowledgeable industry leaders. The Courier will publish a special supplement that will include an edited version of the discussion and a biographical profile of each panelist.

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APRIL 27, 2018 | ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER 5B

ESTATE PLANNING ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

COURIER: With the tax law change that’s come about, and the reform, how much impact does that have on estate planning? George, does it impact your industry? Do you have your arms around this? It seems like this was something that wasn’t out there for months to re-view before it became reality.

SPARKS: Yes. There was a tax law change and there are a lot of rules out there with no interpretations yet. So, we are waiting for the IRS to come down with their application of the code and how to apply it. There was an increase in the ex-emption, which you can take advantage of, but we’ve seen how these things can change. However, the fundamentals of es-tate planning and financial planning will remain the same. Some may be able to take advantage of the applicable tax ben-efits. But, we never want to plan around a tax law, because it changes. Ideally, the process involves coming up with a fundamental basis of what your client needs, and how as advisors we can best help them. There’s a 20 percent qualified income deduction for business owners. Understanding that and making sure that if you, as a business owner, have multiple entities that you are taking advantage of the full deduction on both of those things. That’s an example of one benefit, which would allow for more retainage of assets inside the person’s wealth accumulation phase. Ultimately, it’s trying to under-stand and apply the law, and making sure you’re working with everybody, so you can share as much knowledge as possible with your clients and the other advisors. Together, we can look at taking advantage of the potential tax benefits.

COURIER: In firms like yours, I’m sure your phones are ringing off the hook. In some ways, I feel like this is a game-changer. This is the biggest change in decades.

SPARKS: It is. Obviously, it helps with the reduced rates, there’s more asset re-tention that you’re not sending off to the federal government, and things like that, but it’s what you do with it, and how you incorporate those savings. Asking, “What are you going to do with that?” Are you going to use it in the short-term, because you want to live for today, or do you want to use it for a long-term asset accumula-tion, or for charitable giving? There’s a change to itemized deductions making sure that clients understand that they can take out of their required minimum distributions and giving that directly to a charity. That’s one way to reduce tax-able income. And, again, just to maximize the standard deduction if you’re not fall-ing into an itemized deduction type of situation.

GIBSON: One way we hope to achieve George’s goal is to increase the bundling of charitable giving using donor advised funds. If a client hopes to itemize deduc-tions in a certain year, bundling that cli-ent’s charitable giving in that year, giving a large chunk of money to a donor advised fund, taking an income tax deduction that year for that amount, but then doling out those monies from the donor-advised fund, over time, is a great way to do that. This also allows beneficiaries and heirs to have a say in where those charitable assets will go, even though they are not legally entitled to the monies. That’s one tool we’ve been using.

SPARKS: I think one thing to add is as you look at a client’s assets, generally, they have different buckets that are tax deferred and taxable accounts, and understanding the tax consequences of taking money out of each of those, and the timing of that is something to incorporate with the finan-cial advisor or the wealth management person that you are using – reviewing what’s available and what’s the best tax scenario. Those are discussions we would have beforehand, because once you take it, you’ve already decided the tax treatment of it. Communication among all the team members is so important. It should be a free-flow of information, and for that client to give you the ability to talk to everybody on the same team. To know, that I do want you talking to my attorney, or my wealth advisor. We must be working together to maximize the plan for you.

COURIER: You said you’re waiting. The IRS has yet to come out with their guide-lines. When is that going to happen and are you in a holding pattern right now for

bigger decisions because of this, or are you moving forward with what you have?

SPARKS: We are planning the best that we can. What happens is Congress passes the law, and then it’s up to the Internal Revenue Service to interpret it to code and come out with the rulings,. You get some insight, but until you see application on all of it, you do the best you can.

COURIER: So, there are no changes in any sort of strategic moves that you’re ad-vising right now based on the tax reform?

GIBSON: For clients with estates pre-dicted to be under the federal exemption amount, and now more clients are, we focus more on the other estate planning goals, which are income tax planning like George talked about, controlling the dis-position of assets after death, avoiding probate and increasing privacy. So, we’ve been focusing on those other goals, but we are planning to see changes in the future.

POOLE: Are you taking advantage of any opportunities to use up the exemption before 2025? I’ve heard talk about that.

GIBSON: On the estate planning side, the only change was the increased exemp-tion amount which under the new law will sunset in 2026. We are talking with clients about using the additional exemption and using similar strategies as we did before the new law passed. With respect to the income tax side of the new law, there is still a lot to be learned.

COURIER: What are wealth transfer strategies and how do they relate to the estate plan?

POOLE: For clients that are trying to move money throughout the generations, there’s different types of strategies you can use, depending on what their goals are. So, maybe a client can give the an-nual exclusion amount ($15,000 in 2018) to their two kids every year as a strate-gy to move money in a tax-free manner. You can gift cash or stocks. Or for more ultra-high-net worth clients, maybe your using a strategy with rolling GRATs like we’ve done with Katz Teller in the past, where you can freeze the assets in your estate and move that future apprecia-tion on to the next generation in a very tax efficient way.

COURIER: What is ultra-high-net worth?

GIBSON: Close to the federal exemp-tion amount.

POOLE: That’s what we use, over the exemption amount.

COURIER: Are there any other specif-ic strategies regarding wealth transfer? You’ve mentioned a couple. Are there any other strategies you talk about with cli-ents?

POOLE: Yes, we’ve used family limit-ed partnerships in the past, especially if there is a lot of real estate in the fam-ily, or a closely-held business, to trans-fer shares of the business, or part of the real estate, and to get the family to start to become involved in decisions around those things.

GIBSON: Also, to take advantage of discounts when transferring voting and non-voting units of those closely-held businesses to the next generation. A gift that could be worth $1 million without discounts could be worth $650,000 with discounts, so the gift eats into less of the client’s federal exemption amount.

COURIER: Let’s talk about special cir-cumstances. What about those that are single, or those that don’t have children? It’s still important to have an estate plan, but what does that look like?

GIBSON: Many people falsely believe that they only need an estate plan if they have children, or if they are married and have to provide for a spouse after they pass away. But, we recommend that ev-eryone over the age of 18 have certain documents in place, to make life easier for the folks they leave behind, maybe not emotionally, but logistically. For ex-ample, a will is of particular importance for a single person who has a long-term

DISCUSSION, CONTINUED ON PAGE 6B

“ We recommend that everyone over the age of

18 have certain documents in place, to make life

easier for the folks they leave behind.”

– Maggie Gibson, Katz Teller

PHOTO: MARK BEALER

6B ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER | APRIL 27, 2018

ESTATE PLANNING ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

partner that he/she would like to leave assets to. In the absence of that will, local law could distribute their assets to rela-tives instead of to that long-term partner. So, a will would be essential for someone in that position. Also, a financial power of attorney is of importance for single persons. Without that document, in the event of a person’s incapacity, a person that might need access to his/her finan-cial assets to pay medical bills would have to go to probate court, institute a formal guardianship proceeding, have the person deemed incompetent, be a named guard-ian, and it’s a public process that’s time consuming and sometimes expensive, when time is usually of the essence. So, powers of attorney, healthcare and finan-cial, are essential.

SPARKS: It makes it so much easier on the people that are having to deal with the situation.

COURIER: Are there more people who fit into the single or no children categories than there were 20 years ago, or are the numbers steady?

GIBSON: Someone might say, “I have a lot of student debt” or “I don’t have any assets,” but it’s still essential to have those powers of attorney and a will in place.

COURIER: What are special needs trusts and why are they important?

GIBSON: These are specialized trusts for the benefit of individuals who are cur-rently receiving needs-based assistance from the government such asMedicaid. We don’t want gifts of assets or inheritance to disqualify that individual from receiving those benefits, so the special needs trusts are written to provide for supplemental benefits that the government might not pay for, such as dental, vision, or recreation costs, and it’s a separate pot of money that will not disqualify that individual from re-ceiving needs-based assistance.

COURIER: Ohio has adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act. What does that mean to trustees and executors as far as access to digital assets like E-mail and Facebook?

GIBSON: Fiduciaries – powers of attor-ney, trustees and executors - were at risk of violating federal privacy laws and cus-todians of online accounts were at risk of violating laws as well by giving fiduciaries access to a user’s digital assets and it cre-ated a mess. When we say digital assets, these include online bank accounts, on-line E-mail accounts, social media, gam-ing Bitcoin, etc. Now, under this new law,

custodians of online accounts and digital assets must allow fiduciaries to access such assets if the principal’s financial power of attorney or estate planning document gives that power to the fiduciary. It also created a hierarchy where an online tool, such as Google Inactive Account Manager or Facebook Legacy Contact will trump over a direction in the estate planning document. It’s a new area of the law that requires some attention and a conversation with clients.

COURIER: Speaking of conversations, when it comes to special estate planning concerns for people with aging parents, or parents with Dementia or Alzheimer’s, what are the special concerns there? I’m also interested in how you work through that. In my mind, it has to be one of the hardest things to handle.

POOLE: I think it’s tricky to identify and to get the right people in place to handle those situations. Charles Schwab is a com-pany we use for custody of a lot of client assets. They’ve included a new part of the form that you can write in, not necessarily a power of attorney, but someone we can contact that you have pre-authorized in case we start to see signs of dementia or something like that. Maybe, it’s your old-est child and we can contact them to ask if they’ve noticed anything different about their parent, especially if it’s an out-of-town child. We may have more contact with their mom, or dad, or parent figure than they do, so pointing out those things allows them the opportunity to help with the situation and start to take the formal steps if some-thing is going on.

GIBSON: In an ideal world, those pow-ers of attorney, wills and trusts would be

in place for an aging parent before it’s too late and their children or caretakers will have relationships in place with an aging parent’s financial advisor, accountant, and estate planner to keep things moving for-ward as the disease or aging progresses. It’s also important to keep in mind issues of capacity and undue influence as far as signing documents as clients are aging. Another consideration is how the family intends to pay for long-term care as long-term care insurance might be appropriate. If the family is planning to qualify for and needs Medicaid assistance, that needs to be thought about, sometimes, five years in advance, because of certain look-back rules.

SPARKS: One of the hot topics is the ex-pense of long-term care. As you’re working with your advisors, one of the people to contact is the someone who understands the insurance policies that people have. Because, generally, when you are buying insurance early on, it is meant to be an in-come replacement vehicle, but as people age, and you move on, and children grow up, go to college and are on their own – You can start to look at if you can repurpose some of the original insurance policies through a 1035 Exchange, a tax-free-exchange and convert it, to some sort of long-term care benefit that allows for you to repurpose what would have been death proceeds to use for long-term care. So, the insurance policy transitions from income replace-ment mode when you’re younger to asset protection mode inside your financial and estate plans.

POOLE: We’ve been getting a lot of ques-tions from clients, recently, about their ex-isting long-term care policies, because when the industry started, they mis-priced a lot

of the policies. Some of our clients are get-ting significant, maybe 15 or 20 percent premium increases, so they are starting to question, “Should I continue this policy?” It’s important to go through an analysis of what are their assets, how the policy fits in and making sure that it’s the best policy or should you re-purpose the policy and ex-change it. Like George was saying, to look at a possible tax-free exchange in a differ-ent type of policy can be beneficial.

SPARKS: In talking to them about long-term care, it’s not just a nursing home, it can be for caregivers that come to your house to offer care, or rehabilitation. It’s about understanding all the buckets and sources of funds that are available to you and guiding your clients and giving them the piece of mind. There are a lot of differ-ent pieces, but it’s how we orchestrate all these things together. It might be that we have to change the way things were origi-nally designed and that’s the beauty of an estate and financial plan. It’s really start-ing it and working to evolve it as you ma-ture through your life to meet continually changing needs.

COURIER: George, you mentioned this a couple of times. I’d like to talk about it more. If someone has many different pieces – wills, trusts, retirement plans, insurance, investments, closely-held businesses and taxes that play into the estate and financial planning – What process do you go through to be comfortable or confident that it’s all fitting together right? Several times, you mentioned making sure you’re working through that and talking to your advisors. At what point should they feel comfort-able that they’ve done their due diligence?

SPARKS: I’m a visual person, so I like to map it out for my clients. I like to show them what it looks like and how the pieces fit together with their differ-ent investments, closely-held businesses and insurance policies – so they can gain a solid understanding of what we’re talk-ing about including the wills, trusts and investment assets. Then, they can see in an overall sphere that this is what they have, and we’ve got to manage these in the best way possible. Again, it’s important that they understand that there needs to be clear communication between the attorneys, the wealth advisors and the financial planning experts, and under-standing those documents. If the three of us are working on something, we are all talking about it and we each bring some-thing different to the table. We’re think-ing about taxes, their estate and invest-ment returns. We are coordinating all of that, and having the client understand it, or being part of that meeting would be optimal. Then, they are seeing everyone working together, and having it clearly

DISCUSSION, FROM PAGE 5B

“It may look like you have a lot of money now,

but you may not be projected to have

that much leftover later in life.”

– Lori Poole, Bartlett Wealth Management

PHOTO: MARK BEALER

APRIL 27, 2018 | ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER 7B

ESTATE PLANNING ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

defined. It’s something they can look at. They can call any one of us if we’re all on the same page. If something happens to the spouse, or the client, somebody knows what’s going on. So, the surviv-ing person isn’t overwhelmed. They have at least three different people they can call, who are used to working together, and they are going to help execute your plan. They are going to make it as seam-less as they can at a difficult time, and it will take some of the stress off.

GIBSON: We say our trusts are only as good as what’s funding them. So, if ben-eficiary designations for retirement plans, insurance plans and asset titling don’t cor-respond with the estate planning docu-ments that we draft, then the client hasn’t accomplished a lot. Sometimes, tying up those loose ends can be time consuming with a lot of paperwork. That’s where the team can work together, to communicate regularly, and make sure that all the loose ends are taken care of.

SPARKS: Breaking it down into manage-able pieces for the client to understand is important, because it can be very daunting and overwhelming if you try to address everything at once. But, just giving them peace of mind, knowing that all their ad-visors are working together. You can say how you’d like things to play out, but it comes down to what the documents say in the end and that will be how it happens.

POOLE: One way we try to keep that in front of clients, is every time you are going through their financial plan and reviewing things with them, it’s showing them a list of the titling of their accounts and verify-ing the details like beneficiaries. Is that still who you want listed as a beneficiary? Did you get divorced last year, and your ex-spouse is still the beneficiary of your life insurance policy, you already changed your retirement plan, but you just forgot one? It’s constantly making sure we are keeping that in front of clients, so they are aware of what’s going on.

COURIER: How can you tell if your com-pany’s retirement plan is fitting properly into the rest of your financial and estate planning? What can you do to make sure they’re working together, and they fit?

POOLE: You can fold a company retire-ment plan in with all the other assets and make sure that their asset allocation is coordinated. Retirement plans have a set amount of investments that you can choose, usually mutual funds, so just mak-ing sure if there is a hole there, you can fit that into a different account and when you look at everything, holistically. You can make sure everything is working together to meet your goals. A lot of times when

we start talking about retirement plans, the conversation comes up if you should have Roth assets or pre-tax assets, and why you would choose one over the other. So, it’s working with that client to see what works for them. A lot of that comes down to working with their tax advisor to see what their current or future tax situation might be and that can play into the situ-ation as well.

SPARKS: One of the questions we are asking right now as we work with close-ly-held businesses and their owners is “Regarding the retirement plan you have now, would you consider amending the return to allow for broker advised funds inside of your retirement plan?” And that allows a wealth manager to not only use the mutual funds that somebody else is making decisions about, but it allows the advisor to include their whole plan, and to pull all these other assets in, so it’s all coordinated together. That’s been an area of interest. It allows the advisor to do a better job, and they are not having to re-act to a mutual fund manager. I think the closer you can get to the advisors helping you with those assets, the more potential your plan has of being successful, at least from a financial standpoint and reaching its goals.

COURIER: The stock market has been crazy, lately. This is not a market for cau-tious people, at least compared to last year. What are some of the other investments to consider for people who don’t like the mar-ket right now, or they just don’t trust it?

POOLE: This year is a more normal year when you look at historic volatility of the stock market. Last year was an extreme

on the other side with the biggest pull-back during the year being about three percent. That hasn’t happened since the mid-1990’s, so this year, where we’ve al-ready had a couple five or 10 percent pull-backs, is a more normal year. But to your point, we are telling clients to stay at their strategic asset allocation and make sure they are diversified very well. Something that we have been using are alternative investments, so clients can have further diversification, depending on what all of the goals are in your strategic asset al-location. All investments have risks, so I think the biggest piece of it is making sure clients understand what risks they are taking and how all of the risks of their portfolio fit together to make a diversified portfolio, and how that plays into their long-term goal.

SPARKS: There are private placements out there that are non-market related (alternatives) and they are not going to move like the market, but again, they car-ry a different type of risk. It should only be a certain piece of your portfolio, but there are things available to clients that may or may not make sense for them. You must look at what their risk toler-ance is and what they are hoping to do, and how that fits into their overall plan. However, there are alternatives out there that are available to clients, you have to understand it and see if they have the risk tolerance for it.

COURIER: There is another kind of risk and that’s the risk of missing out. I’m sure you deal with that all the time.

The last thing I want to bring up is the importance of relationships. Hearing you talking this morning, and this may

go without saying, but it reminds me how important relationships are and how im-portant it is for clients to feel like there is a good team around them. How do your companies address that? How do you make somebody feel comfortable that they are working with the best and this is their home?

POOLE: Creating that peace of mind is the business that all of us are in.

COURIER: How do you create peace of mind? Does it come from preparation, or is it more softer skills than that? They may be a genius when it comes to finan-cial or estate planning, but it also must be somebody I want to sit down with.

GIBSON: Evident from our session to-day is that George and Lori are great at taking complex ideas and making them simple and manageable for clients to understand. Being natural teachers is something that can have a big impact on the client’s sense of ease as they are coming into these tough conversations. Assuring a client that communication is key for all of us is important as well. For example, if a client is determining what assets to dispose of during his or her life, and what assets to dispose of after they pass away, I will contact Lori or George and ask them if the client has any low-basis assets that we should have them hold onto and dispose of after they pass away to take advantage of basis step-up. We can all work together to make deci-sions like that.

POOLE: To build on that, Maggie, listen-ing is so important in all our businesses. You can’t have any pre-conceived notions of a plan you are going to do before you walk in and talk to a client and under-stand what they are trying to accomplish. You have to listen to them first. Then, we can all work together to come up with the best plan that is customized to that client. I think another skill that is evident in all of us is empathy. You must have empathy with each client to build that trust.

COURIER: Thank you. That’s great. What you bring to this issue offers such relief.

SPARKS: It’s not an easy answer. You’re not going to get it all in one meeting or in one article. It’s building that trust. They are already in front of you for a reason, so there’s some level of trust that has been established. You may have been working with them for years. It’s building on that, listening and having empathy, and having a desire to help a client go from here to the very end. Instead of stopping at the five-yard line and kicking a field goal, we need to get them to the end zone.

“Instead of stopping at the five-yard line

and kicking a field goal, we need to get

them to the end zone.”

– George Sparks, Barnes Dennig

PHOTO: MARK BEALER

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