Whether through successful businesses, savvy investments, or sheer hard work, wealth creation is a journey many undertake. However, an often neglected aspect of this journey is intergenerational wealth planning. This involves establishing strategies and structures that will help pass wealth from one generation to the next in the most effective way possible. While the process offers numerous benefits, it isn’t without its challenges and risks. Let’s delve into the complex world of intergenerational wealth planning, intergenerational financial planning and intergenerational wealth management – considering its pros and cons and how to approach it wisely.
Table of Contents
The Benefits: Why Intergenerational Wealth Planning Matters
Secure Future Generations
The most compelling reason for intergenerational wealth planning is to secure the financial future of subsequent generations. This planning can help provide education, startup capital for businesses, or even funding for significant life events like marriage. By planning ahead, you’re not just leaving behind a legacy but also providing a safety net for future generations.
Mitigating Tax Liabilities
With the right strategies in place, intergenerational wealth planning can also significantly reduce estate and inheritance taxes. By using tools like trusts, life insurance, and donations, it’s possible to pass wealth to heirs while minimizing the tax burden. A well-crafted plan can make a difference between losing a significant chunk of wealth to taxes or keeping it within the family. But the lines between what used to be regarded as acceptable and what isn’t have become blurred – so any tax benefits should be a consequence of good planning, not the primary objective.
Promoting Family Values
Wealth planning also allows for the transmission of family values. This can be done through family businesses, where subsequent generations learn from their predecessors, or through philanthropy, where wealth is used to support causes important to the family.
Intergenerational Financial Planning: A Guide for the Future
Intergenerational financial planning takes a long-term view of family wealth. Rather than focusing solely on the wealth of the current generation, it takes into account the financial needs and goals of future generations as well. This planning includes elements such as insurance, savings, and investments, but it also incorporates estate planning, tax strategies, and even retirement plans. The objective is to ensure that wealth doesn’t just accumulate but flows seamlessly from one generation to the next.
The benefits of intergenerational financial planning are considerable. Firstly, it creates financial security for all family members, not just the wealth creators, but also their children and grandchildren. Secondly, by incorporating elements such as education funding and retirement planning, it allows each generation to enjoy a good quality of life without depleting the family wealth. Lastly, it encourages family members to think beyond their immediate financial needs and consider the long-term financial health of the family as a whole.
Intergenerational Wealth Management: Navigating the Maze of Wealth
Intergenerational wealth management on the other hand, is a more focused discipline. It centres on the strategies and structures needed to preserve and grow family wealth over multiple generations. This often involves the creation of trusts, foundations, or family businesses that can serve as vessels for family wealth. These structures not only protect wealth from potential threats but also provide opportunities for it to grow through strategic investments.
The benefits of intergenerational wealth management are multi-dimensional. For starters, it protects family wealth from unnecessary taxation and potential legal risks. Moreover, by engaging in strategic investments, it allows family wealth to grow and compound over time, which can be especially beneficial in the face of inflation or economic downturns. Access to asset classes and investments not necessarily available to everyone like private equity, credit, and infrastructure can mean you are also able to obtain risk-adjusted returns that increase the probability of growing and preserving wealth through generations.
Additionally, structures like family businesses or foundations can serve as platforms for passing down family values and traditions, helping to reinforce family identity and cohesion across generations.
Further Reading: The benefits of using inter vivos discretionary trusts as an estate and wealth transfer tool.
The Challenges of Intergenerational Wealth Planning: It's Not All Smooth Sailing
Family Dynamics
One of the most significant challenges in intergenerational wealth planning arises from family dynamics. Disagreements over the distribution of assets can lead to disputes, damaging relationships and potentially even leading to legal battles. Effective communication and clear structures are crucial to managing this challenge.
Keeping Up With Legislation
Tax and inheritance laws are complex and constantly changing. What works today may not be valid tomorrow. Consequently, continuous monitoring of relevant laws is necessary, and that can be daunting for many. The scrutiny and taxation of trusts has come under increased focus around the world for example, with SARS in particular paying close attention to how they’re established and managed with their various anti-avoidance provisions. Therefore, making sure things are done correctly are particularly important.
Succession Planning
Succession planning is another challenge. Identifying the right people to take over businesses or manage family wealth can be tricky. Successors need not only the right skills but also the willingness to take on such responsibilities. Engaging with potential successors and the family more widely from an early stage and crafting things like a family charter with the help of an impartial professional intermediary (like your financial planner/wealth manager) – can go a long way to ensuring a smooth transition.
The Risks: Navigating Potential Pitfalls
Lack of Flexibility
A common risk in intergenerational wealth planning is the lack of flexibility. Overly rigid plans can lead to difficulty adapting to unforeseen changes. Circumstances, needs, and desires evolve over time, and it’s important that the wealth planning process accommodates this evolution.
Inadequate or Incorrect Planning
Poorly executed wealth planning can lead to assets getting stuck in probate or beneficiaries receiving less than intended due to tax liabilities. This underscores the importance of consulting with experts in the field. That’s why we’re advocates of acting like a helicopter planner or conductor alongside the family’s other professional advisors (tax, accounting, legal, fiduciary etc.) to ensure strategies are aligned and everyone is working towards a common goal (rather than in silos as is still typically the case).
Sudden Wealth Syndrome
When younger generations inherit significant wealth without preparation or understanding, they might suffer from Sudden Wealth Syndrome, characterized by irresponsible spending, lack of purpose, or feelings of guilt and isolation. This highlights the importance of financial education in intergenerational wealth planning. When working with families, we want to work with kids and the next generation from an early stage so that financial literacy and sound principles relating to money are embedded.
Conclusion: Towards Strategic Wealth Planning
The intricacies of intergenerational wealth planning, intergenerational financial planning and intergenerational wealth management require strategic thinking, careful consideration, and ongoing adjustment. Engaging with professionals like estate planners, tax advisors, and legal consultants is key. It’s not just about passing on wealth, but ensuring it’s done thoughtfully, strategically, and in a way that is most beneficial for the family’s future. Remember, the journey of intergenerational wealth planning is about creating a legacy that transcends the tangible. It’s about preparing the future generation to handle the wealth responsibly and understand the values and hard work that went into its creation.
Despite the challenges and risks, the benefits of successful intergenerational wealth planning are manifold. After all, wealth represents more than just financial security – it’s a bridge that links the past, present, and future, helping to bind families together across generations.
Read Next: Estate Planning 101: The Ultimate Guide provides the foundation to understanding various principles that underpin the intergenerational transfer of wealth
Carl-Peter Lehmann
Carl-Peter is a Director and Partner at Henceforward. He has more than 20 years experience, is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and Investment Professional with extensive international experience. Legacy and intergenerational wealth planning forms an important part of the value proposition Henceforward provides to its Family Office clients.
