Estate Planning Worksheet

The latest statement for every account, the deed or a recent valuation for each property, your life insurance policies, and copies of every beneficiary form. The first four take an afternoon. The beneficiary forms take longer, because most people have never seen theirs since the day they signed them, and they matter more than anything else on the list.

Write the titling and beneficiary details down as you go. The worksheet's estimate of assets that pass through probate assumes retirement accounts and life insurance have a beneficiary named. If a form is blank, or names someone who has died, that asset may fall into probate after all.

Because they override it. An IRA, 401(k), annuity or life insurance policy goes to whoever is named on the custodian's or insurer's form, whatever your will says. For most households near or in retirement, those accounts are the largest part of the estate. In the example the calculator opens with, $1.6 million of a $3.9 million estate sits in retirement accounts and passes by form alone.

The mistakes are predictable: a former spouse still named on a 401(k), a child who has died with no contingent beneficiary behind them, an old form that names “my estate” and so drags the account through probate and onto a faster payout schedule. Check each form for a primary and a contingent beneficiary, and say “per stirpes” if you want a deceased child's share to go to their children. Do it after every marriage, divorce, birth or death in the family, and at least every few years regardless. A 401(k) generally has to name your spouse unless the spouse signs a written waiver.

Beneficiary choices also decide how the money is taxed. Most adult children who inherit an IRA must empty it within ten years, and if you had already reached your required beginning date, they must also take annual distributions in the meantime (IRS). A child in a high tax bracket at the peak of their career may lose a third or more of each withdrawal to tax. Our guide to the inherited IRA 10-year rule shows who is exempt, and why Roth conversions in your own lower-bracket years, or leaving IRAs to charity and taxable assets to family, can leave heirs more after tax.

Title decides whether an asset needs probate at all. Property held jointly with right of survivorship passes to the surviving owner automatically. Bank accounts can carry a payable-on-death designation and brokerage accounts a transfer-on-death designation, which work like a beneficiary form. Many states now allow a transfer-on-death deed for real estate. Anything held in a revocable living trust is controlled by the trustee you name, with no court involved.

What is left, in your sole name with no designation, goes through probate under your will, or under state law if you have none. That is why a trust only works if it is funded. A trust signed at the lawyer's office but never given the house or the brokerage account does little; the pour-over will then sweeps those assets into it through probate, the very process it was meant to avoid. Adding a child's name to a deed or an account to “avoid probate” has its own costs: it can be a gift, it exposes the asset to the child's creditors or divorce, and it can forfeit part of the step-up in basis described below.

A durable power of attorney for finances and a healthcare directive, and at this stage of life they are more likely to be used than the will. If you have a stroke or develop dementia without them, your family may need a court-supervised guardianship or conservatorship just to pay your bills or talk to your doctors.

The financial power of attorney names an agent to manage accounts, file tax returns and deal with Social Security and Medicare. Some banks and brokers are slow to accept a document they did not draft; ask your custodians whether they want their own form on file as well. The healthcare directive usually combines a living will, which records your wishes on life-sustaining treatment, with a healthcare proxy naming the person who decides for you; a HIPAA authorization lets your agents see your records. A revocable trust adds a successor trustee who can manage trust assets the day you cannot. Give copies to the people named, and tell them where the originals are.

Federal estate tax, very rarely: the 2026 exclusion is $15 million per person, and a married couple can shelter $30 million if the first spouse's executor elects portability on Form 706. An estate that did not need to file can still make a late portability election, generally within five years of the death (Rev. Proc. 2022-32). It costs a return, and it protects the survivor if the estate grows or the law changes. Our estate tax calculator shows whether your estate is near the line, with and without portability.

State tax is the more likely bill. Twelve states and the District of Columbia tax estates, several of them from $1 million to $5 million, and five states tax inheritances, with rates set by the heir's relationship to you. The table in the Guide tab above lists each state's 2026 threshold with its source. If you spend part of the year in two states, your legal domicile decides which rules apply, and a move in retirement can change the answer entirely.

Capital gains are where planning pays most often. Property inherited at death generally takes a new basis equal to its value on the date of death (IRS Publication 551), so decades of gain in a house or a stock portfolio are never taxed. A gift made during life carries your original basis instead. For jointly owned property, usually only the deceased spouse's half steps up; in community property states both halves generally can (IRS Publication 555). Hence the usual rule: give cash and high-basis assets during life, hold low-basis assets until death. The annual gift exclusion is $19,000 per recipient in 2026; our guide to gifting to children and grandchildren covers which assets to give and which to keep.

Retirement accounts get no step-up. Every pre-tax dollar in an IRA is taxed as income to whoever withdraws it. That is one reason to consider Roth conversions before RMDs begin, and why qualified charitable distributions from an IRA are often the cheapest way to give to charity after 70½.

List them, and give your executor a way in. Most states have adopted a version of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which lets you authorise access in your will or through a provider's own tool, but your executor still needs to know the accounts exist. Keep an inventory of financial logins, email, photo libraries, any cryptocurrency and its keys, and subscriptions that bill a card. Store it in a password manager with an emergency-access feature, or in a sealed letter with your documents, never in the will itself, which becomes public in probate. Apple's Legacy Contact and Google's Inactive Account Manager let you name who can reach your data after death; setting them up takes minutes.

It is a plain-language guide for the people who settle your affairs, and yes. It has no legal force, which is its strength: you can update it whenever you like without a lawyer. Say where the documents are; list every account, adviser, accountant and insurance agent; note which bills are paid automatically; record funeral and burial wishes; and explain anything that might otherwise cause friction, such as why one child received help with a house. A copy of your household budget, such as our Google Sheets budget template, shows the executor what comes in and what goes out each month. The worksheet's Document Checklist sheet has a line for the letter and for each document above, with space to note where each is kept.