Transcript: 

Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to Retirement Unlocked with Larry Heller, your life Your Way, unlimited possibilities. Join us as we explore how tailored financial planning and investments can help you navigate life transitions with confidence. Let’s dive into this week’s episode. 

Matt Halloran: Welcome to The Retirement Unlocked Podcast with your host, Larry Heller.

Today we’re going to discuss estate planning in retirement. Our guest today is Wendy Goidel, founder of Goidel Law Group. She’s an estate planning attorney and elder law attorney who helps families protect their loved ones and their assets with compassion. Care. Wendy also created concierge care coordination, a unique approach that combines legal planning with social work, and she’s been recognized as one of Long Island’s top 50 women in business.

Larry, take it away. 

Larry Heller: Thanks, Matt. Thank you, Wendy, for joining us today. I’m excited. We’re gonna talk about some estate and retirement planning. We’re gonna cover a lot of [00:01:00] different areas. Give you guys some, uh, some little tidbits, some things to, uh, think about. So, uh, thank you, Wendy. Why don’t we kind of jump right into this and kind of just talk about kind of the basics, like what are the essential estate planning documents, which should be a part of everyone’s comprehensive retirement plan?

Wendy Goidel: Sure. Well, first of all, I just wanna thank you for having me, um, on your program today. It’s a pleasure. There are a number of components that would. A part of a comprehensive estate plan, and I know we’re focusing on retirees, but the most important document for everybody would be a, a durable general power of attorney and a very comprehensive one.

And that’s a document where. You as the principal would name, trusted agents to be able to step into your shoes and handle a whole host of legal and financial decision making. So basically, whatever you can do for yourself, your trusted agent can do for you. [00:02:00] So if you become incapacitated or unavailable to act for any reason.

So generally it’s upon incapacity. But can be used, let’s say if you went on a trip around the world and you weren’t available to go to the bank and, and do some banking or any other type of decision making, your trusted agent can do that for you. So that is a document that everybody over the age of 18 needs, because failing to do that, even though you know you may be married, you may have a spouse.

Mm-hmm. Your spouse does not have the legal authority to. Make decisions for you. Believe it or not, that might work for a lot of people, but when we’ve seen situations where there is no power of attorney, the individual now lacks the requisite capacity to sign a power of attorney. And there’s no choice but to resort to a guardianship proceeding, which is something that we wanna avoid at all costs.

Larry Heller: Right? And that obviously wouldn’t. Account for if it was a joint account with a husband and wife, right? Yeah. Well 

Wendy Goidel: that’s a little different if it’s a [00:03:00] joint account. But if you have an accountant, just your individual name, um, nobody else can act for you if you do, do not have that power of attorney in place.

So that’s always the number one document, believe it or not. I mean, everybody always. Laura, I should say, a lot of people lead with, oh, you need a will. The will is another legal document. Well, a will is part of a traditional estate plan, and a will is a document where you create your set of instructions of how you want your assets to be distributed after you pass away.

So I always equate it to a death plan because there are no instructions what happens during lifetime. So a will needs to go through a process called probate if the decedent has assets in his or her individual name when they die. So more modern planning typically consists of trusts, one or more trust for different purposes.

So a trust is a, essentially a legal entity that takes ownership of somebody’s assets. A living trust is one that’s [00:04:00] created during lifetime and typically covers three phases of life. One now while you’re alive and well, two, if you become incapacitated, and three when you pass away. So it’s a more detailed set of instructions for how somebody wants their assets to be spent, how perhaps they wanna be cared for.

It. Names successor trustees. To step in and act for them in the event of incapacity. And when that individual passes away, those assets pass directly to named beneficiaries. So it avoids any kind of probate or court proceedings. That’s one type of trust. We can get into many other types of irrevocable trusts that are used for different purposes.

That could be estate tax minimization or avoidance. It could be for asset protection, it could be for creditor protection. So when we talk about trust-based planning, we have to talk about what that client’s goals are, what their needs are, [00:05:00] what they’re trying to accomplish through their planning. So a more modern plan would consist of trusts essentially too.

To have those good set of instructions in place and avoid court proceedings. 

Larry Heller: Yes. I mean, these are all great things. I’m just gonna kind of throw in sometimes from my mm-hmm. Side that we’ve, we have clients come to us and they have these revocable trusts and they have these great wills and everything, and a lot of ’em.

Unfortunately don’t realize that one, if they have a trust, they have to still, still have to change their investments into the name of the trust. They think they create this trust and they don’t put everything in the trust, so that, that’s kind of one of the things that we see. The other thing is people think they have these wills and they don’t realize that their insurance and their.

The way their accounts, titles kind of go before the wills. So those are kind of the things. I don’t know if you, you see that a lot, Wendy, but we see that a lot when people come to us. 

Wendy Goidel: Yes. I mean, we do see that. Unfortunately, it’s really [00:06:00] important for people like me, estate planning attorneys to work with people like you, good financial advisors, to work as a team to make sure that if a client is creating a trust, now we could create the best set of instructions.

The be. It could be the greatest trust in the world, and I’m just joking when I say that, but. It’s only paper unless it’s funded. And that’s what you’re talking about. We need to make sure those assets get into the trust or are beneficiary designated to the trust. Otherwise the trust is going to fail. And then that individual who paid all this money to someone like me to create this lifetime trust, now the beneficiaries are grumbling because now they still have to go through probate.

Larry Heller: Yep. 

Wendy Goidel: So the last part of our process in our office is to make sure that the trust is properly funded. And is updated and people think, oh, I have a will. So that means that my assets are definitely going to pass through the will to the beneficiaries. I’ve named in the will, but they haven’t coordinated it with their beneficiary [00:07:00] designations.

So it’s all intertwined. So when we do comprehensive planning, we have to work together to make sure that all the beneficiary designations are appropriate and up to date that they work with the documents. 

Larry Heller: Yeah, that, I mean, it’s so important. I’m glad you do that. ’cause I can tell you I’ve had clients that have been upset with their estate attorney after they’ve had these documents and they said no, no one told them that they had to kind of go through this or followed up with them.

So, uh, so keep that in mind. It’s great to have all these documents, but you gotta make sure that they’re executed and they’re done properly. So whatever your wishes are, they will happen the correct way. 

Wendy Goidel: Correct. Absolutely. So those are the documents that kind of direct where the assets go and how they’re distributed, whether it’s outright, whether it’s further trust for beneficiaries.

The other lifetime documents that are really important to that everybody needs would be a healthcare proxy, a living will, a HIPAA authorization, um, and our office, we combine all those three. Forms into one document so that there’s [00:08:00] no inconsistency. So a healthcare doc, healthcare proxy names one or more agents to be able to again, step into your shoes and handle your healthcare decision making, your medical decision making in the event of incapacity or inability to communicate, even if it’s temporarily, that we incorporate the living will language into the healthcare proxy because the one decision.

In my mind that you don’t wanna leave to a loved one or an agent. It’s a decision whether you live or die. So we incorporate that end of life decision making into the document so that it’s very clear that it’s your decision. So your spouse or your child or loved one does not have to direct the hospital to remove you from life.

Support, doesn’t have to say. So. It’s clearly sets forth a do not resuscitate order. Do not intubate, don’t use any artificial means to keep me alive. Just give me. Pain alleviating medications, so it gives peace of mind to the loved one. And sometimes if an individual names a [00:09:00] healthcare agent, an alternate healthcare agent in the document, but they have, let’s say they have multiple children and they’re not naming all of them as agents, they may wanna have a separate HIPAA authorization that would give authority to other individuals to be able to get information, not make medical decisions.

To get information. So let’s say you’re in the hospital and you, you, you know, child number three is not an agent but wants to call the nurses station to find out how mom and dad are. They can, they can. Have that authority. 

Larry Heller: Yeah. I know the most, they’re not most pleasant things to really talk about and a lot of people don’t want to.

But it’s so important that you have these, so when that time comes, you’re not kind of fumbling around and trying to figure it out at that time. 

Wendy Goidel: I always say the only people who like to talk about disability and death are people like us. 

Larry Heller: That’s true joke. So let, let’s kind of, you know, talk a little bit about.

You know, some of the other things that maybe can happen and, and derail a retirement plan such as, you know, you know, a long-term illness which requiring some other [00:10:00] costs. And why don’t you talk, talk a little bit about what you can do about that. 

Wendy Goidel: Sure. I think the number ones. Thing or issue that could really derail a good financial retirement plan is failing to factor in, uh, significant long-term care costs, the cost of care.

And in New York especially, it’s extremely expensive. Like I could have the best retirement plan in the world, but if I haven’t figured out how I might pay for future care costs, I might not have enough money to pay for those care. I might end up spending a lot of my hard-earned assets to pay for the care we need to.

Understand what the cost of care is and what the different payer sources for care and where we might get that care. So for example, that care could be. Received at home. Ideally, we want everybody to be able to age in place in the retirement, you know, in the residents of their choice. And if we can bring care into the home, private care is about $40 an hour.

So if somebody needs significant [00:11:00] care and you could do the math and how expensive that might be. If someone needs 24 7 care around the clock care, um, it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Assisted living communities that can run anywhere between $5,000. That’s on, that’s rare. Up to 10,000 is more of the norm, $10,000 a month and more depending upon the level of care that an individual needs.

And skilled nursing facilities, which we try to avoid at all costs because we want people. You know, live in the least restrictive environment is somewhere between 18 and $20,000 a month. In New York. You know, you see all those ads that say, can you comfortably retire on a million dollars? Well, that million dollars probably will get spent down pretty rapidly if you need to pay $20,000 a month, whether that’s at home assisted living or a skilled nursing facility.

So knowing the different payer sources for care and how to plan around that is really important. So a lot of people who come to talk to us think, well, [00:12:00] Medicare is going to pay for their long-term care. And it’s a very common misconception ’cause people confuse Medicare and Medicaid. So Medicare does not pay for long-term care.

It only pays for about T 20 days in a, in a, let’s say in a rehab facility. So we need to look at other sources. So private pay, so we have high income, high assets. We can self-insure, we can pay for our care ourselves. But one of the biggest tools that I suggest is that everybody look into long-term care insurance because we can’t just rely on the Medicaid program to pay for the cost of care if we become destitute or qualify for that.

Um, so long-term care insurance is something that. I think everybody, at least the ages of 50 and up should take a look at, let the insurance company pay for the care in the future, and that could go into paying for home care, assisted living, or nursing home care. The Medicaid program is for individuals who qualify financially.

It’s a [00:13:00] government benefit program, but that requires planning proactively in advance of a crisis. We could still do planning in a crisis, but then you know it’s gonna be harder to, there’s no way you’re gonna be able to protect all your assets in a crisis situation. So understanding. The levels of care, the cost of those levels of care and where you wanna get that care is something that really needs to be addressed and focused on because we can’t just say, oh, it’s not gonna happen to us because statistics show about two thirds of individuals over 65 are going to need some level of care in the future.

Larry Heller: Yeah, and we can have a whole podcast just about, just about that. I mean, we have those conversations too, and sometimes people wait until it’s too late and then they, then the long-term care insurance isn’t an option anymore. 

Matt Halloran: Yeah. 

Larry Heller: In New York, they’ve really unfortunately limited now some of your insurance options that are out there.

So make sure you’re working with somebody. Who can, who can provide you the best options for you. But self-funding is something that is, is is [00:14:00] something we do as part of the retirement plan is really taking if you can, and you have enough money to self-insure, really taking that out and kind of putting it as a separate pot and actually investing it differently.

So. All great ideas, all things that, um, should be looked at. And, um, you know, Wendy Mi mentioned age 50. I mean, that’s really the time that you really wanna start looking at this. You don’t wanna wait until you’re 70 years old and insurance may not be an option for you. So the earlier, the better. 

Wendy Goidel: And if you’re married and one spouse needs significant care and there was no planning done, you would run the risk of depleting assets to pay for that spouse’s care, leaving the other spouse destitute, and then the kids are never gonna be happy because there goes their inheritance.

So there’s so many factors inter intertwined. 

Larry Heller: Absolutely. So let’s, let’s kind of talk a little bit about kind of legacy planning. And, you know, a lot of people kind of wait and they wait and they wait. And fortunately some people, we’ve all heard about, um, public figures who’ve died [00:15:00] without having wills or ha having a plan together.

But, you know, legacy planning isn’t just about transferring wealth at at at death. So why don’t you talk a little bit about some of your thoughts here on legacy planning. 

Wendy Goidel: Tim, when I, when I address legacy planning, it’s really about the intangible assets that we wanna pass down to our loved ones. So it’s more than just the traditional wealth transfer.

It’s really about making sure that we can document and pass on our values, our stories, our, you know, our, our hopes for the future, our memories for the next generation. Um, and those are the. The assets, those intangibles that people tend to overlook when they’re talking about their planning. I mean, I always say we as estate planners can create the best documents to pass on wealth, but that is a big topic that that is overlooked.

You know, it’s like a. Creating the treasure map for your children or the roadmap and [00:16:00] encapsulating all of those stories that are going to get lost. And, you know, the successor generations are not going to have all of that, and they may not. And, and that’s the, those are the things that can impact their lives and could be about.

What, what charities were you, did you feel strongly about? What, what are your hopes and dreams for your, for the future generations? How do you wanna be remembered? What are the, you know, the blessings for your children? What’s your history? Tell the stories. A lot of, a lot of people don’t know these things, so, I mean, in our office we’ve created a a, a guide to creating an ethical will.

That ethical will is the encapsulating all of the legacy planning. And that can be in many different forms. It could be a letter, it could be multimedia, it could be photos, it could be videos. So there’s so many different ways to, um, to capture all, all those treasures that are gonna be lost. They’re not 

Larry Heller: documented.

Yeah, I mean that’s such a great thing to do. I mean, I think a couple years ago there was [00:17:00] someone out there who created something called a legacy letter. Basically writing a letter to your children and now while you’re, while you’re alive, to give it to them. And it actually hit home with me a related personally to it because actually before my dad, he.

Died. He had written me a letter that I still have to this day and kind of treasure, you know, treasure that. And a lot of times when we, we work with clients that have parents who have passed on, they’re not fighting over their money, they’re fighting over some of the intrinsic things, the jewelry. I want this piece, I want that piece.

So putting, putting that into writing, but also putting all your wishes and your. Your memories. I’ve, I’ve heard people say, I wish I had my mom’s recipe for this particular, uh, food. So all those things are, are great, that are really not thought about by a lot of estate attorneys. 

Wendy Goidel: Right. That would be like the icing on the cake.

That’s the last piece and that. Ethical will or however you create it, is, is, is fluid, is ongoing. It could be, you could [00:18:00] work on it over your lifetime. It doesn’t have to be one and done. There, there are a lot of tools we’re actually gonna start working with, uh, with a website and an online platform for our clients to create these.

And there’ll be a personal side and a kind of, uh, the practical and then the personal side to this. So. 

Larry Heller: Great. I love it. I can’t wait to see that. I think that’ll be, uh, that’ll be great. And then I’m just really getting those. Little things out be, besides the money and the estate taxes, to be able to, to provide that, uh, and ongoing, uh, ongoing generations.

Wendy Goidel: Yeah, that, that brings more value to the families, I think. 

Larry Heller: Speaking of taxes. Let’s just kind of, you know, talk a little bit about some taxes. I’d be remiss without bringing up estate taxes, um, especially here in New York because, uh, the estate taxes are a little bit different than the federal taxes. So why don’t we just talk about the New York State estate taxes and maybe how can you can eliminate or reduce them?

Wendy Goidel: Probably a lot of us have heard [00:19:00] that federally, the estate tax threshold is going up to $15 million per person. Starting in 2026, New York currently has a 7.1. $6 million estate tax threshold, meaning you can pass that much estate tax free to, to your beneficiaries to, to your heirs. But New York is a little different than federal and New York has a kind of a punitive tax rule that says if your estate is over.

105% over that threshold. Um, you’re gonna pay tax on the entire amount of your estate. So if your estate right now is between 7.1 6000007.5, a little over 7.5 million, you’re only gonna pay tax on that. Additional amount, but if you’re over 7.518 million, you’re gonna pay tax on the entire amount of your state.

That’s one of the benefits of living in New York state. So it’s, yeah. Well I always, 

Larry Heller: I always joke the best the [00:20:00] state planning you can do in New York is move to Florida. 

Wendy Goidel: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and, and Florida. And Florida and New York State Department of Taxation and Fi finance like, loves to find those people who really don’t qualify.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I’m 

Larry Heller: talking about officially moving to Florida. Yes, yes. I know. Officially not unofficially moving to Florida. 

Wendy Goidel: And if you’re married, you can pass twice that much to your beneficiary. So it’s important to make sure that if you’re married and you are at that, let’s say you’re at that $15 million threshold amount that your assets get divided.

Half, half in each spouse’s name, so that when the, you know, basically I always try to explain the estate taxes, like having a coupon, which you’re going to lose the benefit of that exemption if you own your assets jointly. And when one spouse dies, now the, the surviving spouse now has 15 million. So the surviving spouse is way over the threshold amount.

Much more tax that’s going to be paid, but there are ways to get below that [00:21:00] threshold amount through dividing the assets through different gifting strategies during lifetime. There’s annual gift, annual exclusion, gifting that can be done. You can get to charities there. Make can gift, can make medical and, and tuition expenses, you can pay that directly to the providers.

So there’s, there’s ways to bring your estates down, to be below those levels. 

Larry Heller: Let’s just go back and clarify that a little bit to make a little bit more simpler. So, for federal, there’s a 15, uh, roughly a $15 million exclusion for. Both spouses and you don’t have to worry about it. ’cause technically you get, it’s portable.

You can make, if the, you can wait until the second spouse size and you’re getting 30 million. But in New York you can’t do that. Right? Correct. You’ve take advantage of doing this before the first spouse dies by doing, setting up certain strategies and making sure you have certain assets in each one of your names.

Correct. 

Wendy Goidel: Correct. So if we, [00:22:00] if we, let’s say their spouse, the husband has 7 million and the wife has 7 million. And let’s say we fund those trusts that we talked about earlier with the 7 million. So the first spouse dies, I’m gonna say it’s the husband. Okay. Just for purposes of the discussion, husband passes away.

We don’t give the wife. This other 7 million, that 7 million is going to go into what’s called a credit shelter trust, or a family trust, or a B Trust, and that trust is outside the surviving spouse’s taxable estate. Okay, so she can spend her own the money in her trust. She does have access to income and principle, but she doesn’t control it.

So whatever’s left in that credit shelter trust when she passes, will go to the, the children, let’s say, or the other beneficiaries that can grow estate tax free. So we need to carefully and with you look at how to fund these trusts properly. So that we can take advantage of those two estate tax coupons, [00:23:00] because you’re right, there’s no portability in New York.

Larry Heller: Yeah. 

Wendy Goidel: So if you don’t use it properly, you’re gonna lose it. 

Larry Heller: Yep. You know, if you’re in New York and you’re bumping up against that $7 million, don’t wait. Make sure that you do some of that planning now that, uh, when Wendy’s talking about, ’cause it can end up being, you know, the, the Cliff tax and what we call in New York can end up being a significant amount.

Of estate taxes that could be avoided with proper planning. 

Wendy Goidel: Right. We also add in certain clauses, they call it a Santa Claus. Mm-hmm. So that if you ended up passing away and you had a taxable estate, your executor trustee has the discretion to make a charitable donation to bring your state under the estate tax level.

So whatever the tax you would’ve paid could go to a charity, everybody’s happy. So that’s something that we can build in when we do build in. To, to all of our, to all of the cladding. 

Larry Heller: Right? And I laugh about that ’cause I just came from a client meeting and we were actually reviewing that with the [00:24:00] attorney and kind of, I brought that up and, uh, wasn’t in there.

So that could be a, a very important factor. And so making sure you have the right attorney, making sure you have that right clause in there can end up again, saving your, your, your children, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Right. 

Wendy Goidel: And also to be aware that New York state does clawback gifts made. Three years before, within three years of death.

So important to, again, do all the planning, you know, as soon as, as soon as possible. Right. And keep it updated. 

Larry Heller: So we’ve only touched a little bit about kind of estate planning and retirement planning. Any final words you wanna, you wanna 

Wendy Goidel: mention? It’s also important. I think one of the other things that are overlooked from my experience on the elder care side of the equation are having a good set of instructions for how you wanna be cared for.

If you become incapacitated. So we create what’s called a personal care plan for our clients, which is a detailed set of instructions that basically sets forth in writing what your entire world looks like, what your daily routine is, what you [00:25:00] like to do, what you like to eat, what you like to watch on tv.

It’s akin to caregiver instructions or babysitter instructions. So a lot of, if you do become incapacitated, who’s going to know how it is? You wanna be cared for. What your entire world looks like and what your routine looks like. So I think more planning on the life care side and making sure that you have a good set of instructions for what happens to you during your lifetime.

’cause you’re gonna be alive a lot longer, right? Than hope so, right? I hope so. So the goal is to really think about those things and incorporate your life care planning and your legacy planning in addition to the traditional estate planning. You know, it’s not just about passing assets to death. There’s a lot of other considerations that are so important to enhancing quality of life and passing the values to your kids.

Larry Heller: Yeah, awesome. I mean, that, that, that’s great. Many estate attorneys do not get into that legacy planning and then holistic planning. It’s, but I think it’s just so, so critical to encompass all of it together. [00:26:00] So, Wendy, if somebody wants to reach you and discuss all of that, what’s the best way of them reaching you?

Wendy Goidel: So they can call me (631) 390-5600. They can go to my website, www.goidellawgroup.com, reach out to me, send me an email. We do complimentary consultations. It doesn’t cost anybody anything to come in and talk with me, whether it’s Zoom or in person, to get the right education and options for their, for their planning.

Larry Heller: Great. Thanks so much for joining us today, Wendy. 

Wendy Goidel: Thank you, Larry. Appreciate it. 

Matt Halloran: Thanks for tuning into Retirement Unlocked. If you found this episode helpful, please like, subscribe and share it with someone who might benefit. Wanna take the next step in the episode description below, you’ll find a link to Heller Wealth Management’s website with more resources and the option to schedule a complimentary 20 minute phone call with their team.

Your ideal retirement starts with a conversation. Let’s get started. We’ll see you next time on Retirement [00:27:00] Unlocked.