Products & Services
Estate Planning & Trusts
You’ve worked hard to build a financially secure future for you and your family, and, like many successful Americans, you are now at a point where your primary concern is the management and preservation of accumulated wealth for the benefit of current and future generations. Preserving and distributing wealth for future generations is a serious and complex matter that requires planning and professional expertise in a number of fields. Estate and gift taxation can reduce the value of your estate by up to 60%. Appreciated assets, retirement plan funds, and certain investments may also be subject to income taxation upon your death.
Since estate and income taxes must generally be paid in cash within nine months of one’s passing, this can entail a rather sudden and drastic reduction of assets that could present a substantial need for liquidity. These needs are made even more complex in ever-changing, fast moving market environments that have become the rule rather than the exception in recent years. Effective Estate Planning requires not only taxation and legal expertise, but also knowledgeable, experienced investment management as well.
For many, estate planning is something we know we need to do, but somehow manage to postpone time and time again until some indefinite tomorrow. If you have successfully accumulated significant wealth, there is no time like the present to assure its preservation, management and distribution to future generations intact and in accordance with your personal wishes. Failure to do so might cost you and your heirs a significant part of the nest egg you have created.
Our Service Advantage
We think your financial life is complicated enough. Our goal is to simplify it. Your Financial Consultant is trained to focus and coordinate a variety of resources on your wealth management needs: Estate Planning, Investment Management, and Trust Services. Successful planning results from the efforts of a team of highly trained specialists and professionals working for you.
UVEST Private Trust & Capital Management has been created to facilitate this process through a three-way partnership that includes:
- You, the client
- Your Financial Consultant working with accounting and legal advisors
- New Peoples Financial Services
Your Financial Consultant can work with the other members of your estate and trust planning team to create a customized plan that best fulfills your objectives. With foresight and planning, we can help you protect the assets you’ve spent a lifetime accumulating and assure that they are disbursed according to your intentions.
Understanding Trusts
Why Create a Trust?
Your personal trust is a written record of your wishes. It should reflect the unique goals and circumstances of your life and your family’s needs. Through a trust, you can:
- Provide for professional oversight of your financial affairs
- Take advantage of tax saving opportunities
- Specify how and when assets are distributed to your family, other heirs, friends, or favorite charities
You can even accommodate the special needs of family members or set aside funds for specific purposes. Whatever your goals, your personal trust can give you the flexibility to make long-lasting decisions that will benefit the individuals or causes that are important to you.
Your Financial Objectives
Your trust should accomplish your personal and financial objectives, which may include:
- Asset consolidation & continuity in the management of financial affairs
Consolidating ownership of a variety of assets through a trust will help simplify your financial life. This will ensure there is no interruption in the management of your affairs if you are ever unwilling or unable to handle financial matters. The trustee maintains responsibility for administrative duties and investment of trust assets according to the trust objectives. - Professional asset management & safekeeping
Fiduciary responsibility belongs to the trustee who must oversee the safekeeping and investment management of trust assets. You can appoint a trustee to handle these duties while you are alive. Or, you may prefer to have a trustee assume these responsibilities for your beneficiaries upon your death. This may be especially important if your beneficiaries are minors, mentally incapacitated, or not financially sophisticated enough to direct their investments. - Tax Planning
Using a trust strategy, you may be able to reduce income, gift, estate, or generation-skipping transfer taxes. At the same time, you can assure that your legacy will benefit the loved ones or charities you select. - Control
Your trust agreement can specify how assets should be invested and disbursed, providing you with far greater control than would be possible through outright gifts. Your instructions will be followed while you are alive and after your death. Stipulating how money is to be paid from the trust may be particularly important when assets are earmarked for minors, those who are financially unsophisticated, a family member with special needs, or a specific purpose such as a child’s education. To protect your beneficiaries, you can make provisions that take into account personal situations such as family differences or a second marriage. - Probate Avoidance
Assets that are transferred to a trust during your lifetime often avoid the potentially time-consuming and costly probate process. Since legal title to the assets does not change after your death, there is no need to transfer ownership through probate proceedings and estate administration. Trust assets may be distributed to your beneficiaries quickly and without disruption in the management of the property. It may also offer your family privacy. A typical Last Will and Testament becomes a matter of public record through the probate process. A living trust, however, will generally remain confidential. The existence of the trust during your lifetime is evidence that the arrangement reflects your wishes, which may make it more difficult to contest than a will.
Selecting a Trustee
The world changes rapidly and, by nature, a trust is a financial instrument designed to weather years of change. With today’s expanding life expectancies it’s hard enough to anticipate changes that will occur in your own lifetime. It is literally impossible to see beyond your life and into the future when your trust is likely to do its most important work.
When establishing a trust to direct how your assets should be distributed upon your death, you are faced with the critical task of appointing a trustee. Individuals contemplating a trust must carefully weigh the relative advantages of using an individual versus a corporate trustee for your estate plans. Some of the critical issues are:
- The nature of the trust being established
- The complexity and variety of the assets donated to the trust
- The anticipated duration of the trust
- The needs and circumstances of the beneficiaries
In the end, the grantor or creator of the trust must be comfortable with the trustee chosen—confident that he or she understands and can realize the trust’s goals regardless of changing times and circumstances.
The ultimate decision need not be an either/or choice. Many grantors appoint both an individual and a corporate trustee, each serving as co-trustee. In a natural division of labor, the corporate trustee carries out the specialized administrative and asset management tasks that it does best, while the individual trustee offers helpful insights into discretionary decisions relating to family matters. The trust can be administered in a balanced and responsible way that takes into account the expressed desires of the Grantor and the changing circumstances of beneficiaries.
Your trustee will have the responsibility of collecting, administering, and investing the assets in the trust in strict compliance with the guidelines stated in the trust document. Because this responsibility can continue for many years and involves protecting hard-earned wealth, choosing the right trustee is one of the most important financial decisions one will ever make. The wealth you place in trust can provide untold benefits to your family—but only if it is invested and distributed wisely.
In many cases, family members or friends may have your best interests at heart and administer your trust in a responsible manner and in accordance with your wishes. On the other hand, circumstances often change and at times it may become difficult for these individuals to maintain the required objectivity of a trustee.
For example, if you name your son as trustee of your trust administered for the benefit of your spouse (your son's parent), he may view the assets in the trust as his because the trust will pass to him upon your spouse's death. He may have an incentive to invest more aggressively for long-term growth prospects instead of putting the assets in more conservative investments designed to provide current income to your spouse. A variety of potential conflicts of interest can occur even within a family — or, in many cases, especially within a family.
Another concern with an individual trustee is that they may not have the time or inclination to serve. The duties of a trustee can be more of a burden than an honor. If the trust spans many years, an individual trustee will inevitably die and possibly be replaced by a court appointee. It should also be noted that either beneficiaries or an individual co-trustee can be given the power to remove a trustee and switch to another independent corporate trustee.
A corporate trustee has one overriding obligation—to implement the trust within the bounds set by law and in accordance with the Grantor’s wishes as expressed in the trust document. Conflicts of interest, emotional issues, and other potential impediments to the responsible execution of trustee duties are virtually non-existent if a corporate trustee is selected to serve as sole or co-trustee.
Advantages of a Corporate Trustee
- Financial strength
- Greater stability and continuity
- An experienced team of trust and investment professionals
- An impartial, unbiased viewpoint
- Experience dealing with family wealth issues
- Professional Investment Management
- A customized investment strategy for each trust in accordance with the grantor’s instructions
- Effective tax management strategies
- Absolute compliance with federal/state regulators
Asset Management
Whatever your personal situation or needs, and however you wish to allocate and distribute your wealth after your death, a trust can be created to accommodate your wishes and desires. Your New Peoples Financial Consultant has all the resources necessary to help you develop and implement a personalized estate and trust plan.
One critical component of estate planning is the management of financial assets. For even the most experienced investor, achieving financial success can be complex and challenging. Managing an investment portfolio requires a significant amount of expertise, time, and resources. That’s why many affluent investors now demand a different investment approach and leverage the expertise of highly-skilled, professional investment managers.
Made up of experienced investment professionals, New Peoples Financial Services' Asset Management is committed to understanding your unique needs. We create the appropriate personalized investment solutions you need to achieve your goals. Our commitment is to leverage all of our resources to formulate a prudent, carefully crafted strategy aimed at meeting your specific long-term investment goals.
Benefits for you
- Personal service provided in a confidential atmosphere
- Broad diversification by asset class and style
- Experienced, professional portfolio management selected to meet the specific investment goals of your trust
- Access to the highest quality money managers in the industry
- Continuous monitoring of your portfolio by multiple independent organizations
- Detailed account statements and performance reporting to keep you informed of the status of your portfolio
Whether your Trust is intended to produce current income, generate long-term growth, or anything in between, UVEST Asset Management will create and manage an investment strategy that is responsive to your personal needs.
