You do not need a complicated estate plan. You need a complete one. For the vast majority of retirees, five documents, three conversations, and avoiding two very specific mistakes covers 90% of the work — with none of the wealth-manager mystique that usually surrounds this topic.
The five documents
A will. Names an executor, distributes any assets not otherwise directed by trust or beneficiary form, and names a guardian for any minor dependents. Everyone needs one; even people who think they don't.
A revocable living trust. For anything you want to pass without probate — including out-of-state real estate, brokerage accounts without TOD designations, and privately held businesses. In some states probate is quick and cheap; in others (California, Florida) it's slow and expensive. The trust is the workaround.
A durable power of attorney for finances. Names someone who can act on your behalf financially if you can't. Without one, your family may need a court-appointed conservator to pay your bills after a stroke.
A healthcare power of attorney and living will. Names someone to make medical decisions and states your wishes for end-of-life care. HIPAA authorizations should be attached.
Up-to-date beneficiary designations on every retirement account, life insurance policy, HSA, and transfer-on-death brokerage account. These override your will. Always.
The three conversations
With your spouse. What does the surviving-spouse year look like — income, housing, help nearby, whether to sell the house. The best time to have this conversation is when you don't need to.
With your executor. Where the documents are physically located. Who your attorney and CPA are. What accounts exist and at which institutions. A one-page 'letter of instruction' beats an estate plan the executor can't find.
With your children. Not necessarily the dollar amounts — but the values behind the plan and the roles you'd like them to play. Estate disputes are almost never about the money; they're about the surprise.
The two mistakes to avoid
Adding a child as joint owner on an account 'to make things easier.' This can trigger gift tax, expose the account to their creditors and divorce claims, disinherit siblings (joint accounts pass to the joint owner, period), and destroy the step-up in cost basis that would otherwise reduce their tax bill. Use a transfer-on-death designation or a trust instead.
Leaving beneficiary designations stale after a divorce or death. The single most common estate disaster we see is an ex-spouse still listed as primary beneficiary on a 401(k) or life insurance policy. The will doesn't override this. Two-thirds of retirement dollars pass by beneficiary designation, not by will. Audit them every three years and after every major life event.
The federal estate tax — and why most of you can ignore it
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, made the higher federal estate and gift tax exemption permanent and raised it to $15 million per person ($30 million per couple) beginning in 2026, indexed for inflation. The scheduled 2026 sunset no longer applies.
For the vast majority of households, federal estate tax is not the planning issue. State estate or inheritance taxes (in states like Oregon, Massachusetts, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York) apply at much lower thresholds and are the more common concern.
The real cost of poor estate planning isn't tax — it's the six months of chaos an executor spends untangling accounts nobody knew about.
The inherited IRA rules that changed everything
The SECURE Act eliminated the 'stretch IRA' for most non-spouse heirs. Inherited IRAs must now be emptied within 10 years of the original owner's death, generally with annual RMDs during that window for beneficiaries of accounts where the owner had already begun RMDs.
For many families, this collapses a lifetime tax deferral into a decade — often during the heir's peak earning years. It's the single biggest argument for pre-death Roth conversions and for reconsidering trust language that predates 2020.
If your beneficiary is a trust, review the language. Old 'conduit' and 'accumulation' trust structures may now produce highly inefficient outcomes.
Digital assets and the modern estate
Password managers, email accounts, cloud photo libraries, cryptocurrency wallets, domain registrations, business accounts, social media. Most estate plans ignore all of this and leave families locked out.
Maintain a secure inventory — a password manager with an emergency-access contact is the modern equivalent of the letter of instruction. Include it in the conversation with your executor.
Estate planning is 20% documents and 80% making sure the right people know where the documents are — and that beneficiary designations, which override every will, are current.