Schnapp Decisions

Schnapp Decisions
Eldercare Conference Speaker on Helping Clients Plan for the Future

By Simon Eskow

Accountants can help clients plan their estates by explaining commonly misunderstood concepts and shepherding them through some difficult choices, a speaker at a recent New York State Society of CPAs conference said recently.

Douglas Schnapp, cochair of the Society’s Eldercare Conference on August 12, reviewed 15 areas of eldercare and estate planning which often baffle clients and sometimes elude practitioners, from establishing Supplemental Needs Trusts (SNT) to the need for frequently revisiting estate plans of elderly or sick clients.

Schnapp gave the opening presentation for the all-day conference, sponsored by the NYSSCPA Personal Financial Planning Committee. Around 75 people attended the conference. Other speakers discussed long-term care, tax consequence of certain investment choices, and Social Security.

Schnapp’s presentation focused on practical tools and thoughts to keep in mind in estate planning. For example, CPAs and estate planners can discuss with clients how they want to divide their estate after passing. This can help in cases where clients have allocated assets piecemeal, whereas they should consider the estate as a whole and then allocate to recipients according to a fixed percentage for all their assets. Schnapp said this would help a client avoid unintentionally allocating a greater share of an estate than they likely intended.

Schnapp, however, was not advocating a single approach to divvying an estate. He said that estate planners should have clients bring their “entire family on board” to create a realistic disbursement. Schnapp suggested employing a mental health professional to help the client and family create a disbursement scheme. Clients, for example, may want to reserve a set figure for a needier beneficiary. Getting a client’s family on board to talk about unequal distributions may help avoid confusion or conflict in the long run.

Schnapp further recommended exploring SNTs for sick, handicapped or mentally impaired beneficiaries.

Families should also plan together who will have Power of Attorney (POA) and who will be given Health Care Proxy status. Clients should also make sure that their investment advisors, managing agents and other institutions will accept their designated POAs; many institutions, Schnapp said, will not recognize a POA older than six months.

Clients can arrange to split POA duties so that one person will have power of attorney in investment decisions while another takes care of everything else.

Another detail to remember is that estates in New York cannot be probated unless the estate plan includes a family tree affidavit.

Other speakers at the conference included conference Cochairs Catherine Censullo and Anthony Ventura, as well as sponsoring committee Chair Bruce Milove.