3 Questions You're Dying To Know about Estate Planning (with attorney Tim Semro) SB1723

Summary

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The Stacking Benjamins Show

Episode: 3 Questions You're Dying To Know about Estate Planning

Guest: Attorney Tim Semro
Date: August 18, 2025

Episode Overview

Theme:
The hosts kick off Estate Planning and Charitable Giving Week with attorney Tim Semro, tackling the most common – and critical – estate planning questions from their audience. With their trademark mix of wit and practical advice, they demystify trusts vs. wills, discuss probate myths, cover tricky beneficiary scenarios, dive into state and international estate planning issues, and explore the roles of insurance and long-term care planning in managing your legacy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trusts vs. Wills: What’s the Difference?

[07:44]

• Definition:
  • Trusts avoid probate and function as a contract, offering potential creditor protection, tax savings, and special needs planning.
  • Wills must go through probate and only direct the court about who gets what.
• Analogy: Joe likens a trust to a company that continues after your passing, with successor management following your written rules.
  • Tim: “The trust doesn’t die, it lives on beyond you... With a revocable trust, your Social Security number is the ID number until you die.” [08:40]
• Practicality: Trusts require more upfront work and cost, but are often cheaper and smoother to administer after death.

2. When Does a Trust Make Sense?

[09:23]

• Not Just About Wealth:
  • A trust can be crucial for even moderate estates in cases like special needs beneficiaries, blended families, or specific asset management needs.
  • “It really has to do with what you’re trying to accomplish,” says Tim. “Do you have family issues? Tax issues? Are certain assets complicated?” [09:23]
  • For large gifts to charity, simpler beneficiary designations might suffice.

3. How Onerous is Probate, Really?

[10:16]

• Probate is Overblown:
  • Tim calls it “a necessary evil... there’s nothing scary, it just adds time, costs money, and can be avoided with planning.” [10:19]

4. The Critical Role of Beneficiary Designations

[11:06]

• OG reminds listeners that old or missing designations create real risk: lost files, system errors, or life changes (e.g., divorce, new kids).
• Tim warns: “You need to review your estate plan every couple years... If you have everything pouring into a trust, you can make changes just by updating the trust.” [12:14]
• Hidden Trap: On CDs, beneficiary designations may disappear when the CD rolls over. [12:14]

5. What Happens When Accounts Aren’t Properly Titled?

[13:03]

• Each Account Stands Alone:
  • Without naming your trust or a beneficiary on each account, assets may default to your estate, triggering probate.
  • OG: “Having it blank is not a good answer.” [15:23]
• Special Problem: Qualified accounts (e.g., IRAs) bring tax complications and special rules.

6. Estate Taxes: Federal & State

[15:38]

• Tim: Law now provides a $15M per-person federal exemption—so most listeners needn’t panic (yet). But states can have much lower thresholds or separate inheritance taxes.
  • “...but there always is that chance down the road...the winds could change.” [16:11]
• OG: The federal exemption isn’t “permanent,” and state laws matter. [16:54]

7. Step-Up in Basis & Gifting Mistakes

[17:15]

• Shortcuts Backfire:
  • Gifting assets (like a house) before death creates capital gains issues for heirs (carryover basis vs. “step up”).
  • “If they would have just left it in her name or done different planning, you could have got that step up in basis and then not paid the income tax.” – Tim [18:48]
• Adding Kids to Accounts Risks:
  • Doing so can expose assets to your kids’ divorces/creditors. “There are easy ways to avoid that with simple trusts.” [19:11]

8. Titling Assets: Joint Tenancy vs. Tenants in Common

[20:04]

• Joint Tenancy w/Right of Survivorship: Survivor gets all; avoids probate.
• Tenants in Common: Each party owns a share passed via will/estate plan; can cause accidental probate.
  • Memorable Moment
    • Doug: “If half your house is going into probate, can you specify like not the half with the kitchen?” [21:30]
• Check state default rules!

9. "Per Stirpes" vs. "Per Capita"

[22:11]

• Per Stirpes: If a child predeceases, their share goes to their kids.
• Per Capita: All living beneficiaries split equally, regardless of family branch.
• “Does your state default to per stirpes or per capita? That can cause surprises.” – Tim [22:30]
• Trusts supersede state defaults as contracts.

10. Moving States or Going Overseas

[24:09]

• Domestic Moves:
  • Documents are generally honored, but interpretation may follow new state law. Best practice: review your plan after a move.
• International Moves:
  • If you keep US citizenship and US-based assets, plan stays mostly under US law. Opening foreign accounts? You may need local legal input.
• Noncitizen Spouses:
  • Special marital deduction rules, careful trust planning needed. [27:55]
  • “You have to talk to an attorney...there are a lot of other rules that come into play.” [28:34]
• Pick Your Domicile Wisely:
  • “Get a tie to a state that doesn’t have an income tax.” [29:15]

11. Multiple Wills and Validity Questions

[26:03]

• Latest valid will typically governs, but states vary on requirements (witnesses, handwriting/holographic, etc.).
• Disputes can get messy if documents are improperly executed or witnesses are conflicted.

12. Insurance, Long-Term Care, and Estate Planning

[35:43]

• Long-Term Care (LTC):
  • Planning for LTC is complicated and highly state-specific.
• Medicaid Lookback Rules: Gifts made before qualifying for Medicaid can result in lengthy ineligibility. Tim: “You have to know the rules...as soon as you start giving away the assets, you don’t have control anymore.” [38:33]
• Emotional Trap: Gifting for Medicaid can backfire both financially and emotionally.
• Hybrid Insurance Products:
  • OG discusses pros/cons of life insurance with LTC riders. They’re convenient but often pricier.
    • OG: “Be careful trying to get so poor that the lowest bidder is going to be taking care of your healthcare.” [40:52]

13. Risk Management Mindset

[47:41]

• Start by asking: “What’s my real risk? How would I handle it?”
• Insurance is for high-magnitude, low-probability events. Don’t base all decisions on product features.
• It’s OK (and even good) to pay premiums and never file a claim.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tim Semro [12:14]:
  "Every couple years you need to be looking at your estate plan. What accounts have you opened? Have you got a new broker? Your beneficiary designations may have fallen off."

• Tim Semro [15:25]:
  “Blank is bad. Yeah. Especially with a qualified account, you're going to pay to the estate and you're going to end up taking all that tax in the estate.”

• OG [16:54]:
  "Remember this, Doug, what OG was laughing about, somebody who told him, well, now that the tax law is permanent... Is it ever permanent?"

• Tim Semro [18:48]:
  "If they would have just left it in her name or done some different planning, you could have got that step up in basis and then not paid the income tax."

• OG [40:52]:
  "Remember these are the same people that build our roads. So be careful, like trying to get so poor that the lowest bidder is going to be taking care of your healthcare."

• Tim Semro [47:54]:
  “You may look at it and say, while I don't like the premium, I actually have a better outcome in my plan if I pay the premium and don't need it than if I don't pay the premium and pay for it out of pocket.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 07:44 – Trusts vs. Wills, avoidance of probate
• 09:23 – When should you use a trust?
• 10:16 – What probate is really like
• 12:14 – Danger of outdated/missing beneficiary designations
• 13:03 – Titling accounts and implications for probate/trusts
• 15:38 – Estate tax updates (federal and state)
• 17:15 – Step-up in basis and risk of gifting assets too soon
• 19:11 – Risks of adding kids to your accounts
• 20:04 – Joint tenancy vs. tenants in common
• 22:11 – Per stirpes vs. per capita explained
• 24:09 – Estate planning when moving states or abroad
• 26:03 – Conflicting wills, validity, and execution issues
• 35:43 – Life insurance, living benefits, and long-term care in estate planning
• 38:33 – Dangers and rules on gifting assets for Medicaid
• 40:52 – OG’s insurance advice: “Don’t plan to get so poor that Medicaid is your best hope.”
• 47:41 – Risk-management vs. product-driven insurance decisions

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Bonus: Listener Questions & Scam Warning

[49:03 & After the Show]

• Common 401k Mistake: Not increasing savings rate with pay raises. Listeners are urged to boost both savings and lifestyle upon raises for optimal progress.
• Scam Stories: Multiple listener (and host) stories about increasingly sophisticated fraud attempts involving banks, title companies, and financial advisors.
  • Red flags: Last minute changes, urgency, slightly-off email addresses.
  • Quote, David’s story [52:57]: “Well, slap your forehead with a dildo and wave it in the air.” — A scammer's bizarre response when pressed for ID.
• Safeguards: Always verify with a known contact before transferring funds or sharing private info.

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Conclusion & Action Steps

Estate Planning Best Practices:

• Review and update your documents every 2 years
• Pay special attention to beneficiary designations on all accounts
• Avoid shortcuts (like gifting the home "just in case") – seek professional guidance
• Know your state’s rules, especially if you move
• Consider a trust if you have special situations or complexity — not just “wealth”

On Insurance & Long-Term Care:

• Start with risk analysis, not product features
• It’s fine if you never make a claim—that’s success
• Consider hybrid life/LTC products if appropriate, knowing they often cost more

Above all:
Don’t put off estate planning until it’s too late—your family (and your future self) will be glad you prepared.

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Resources:

• Tim Semro's firm: semrohenry.com ([57:35])
• Stacking Benjamins Facebook Group (“the basement”) – join for community Q&A

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Fun, functional, and a little irreverent—just how estate planning should be.

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For more details on any section above, see indicated timestamps for easy reference!

Transcript

[Joe]

Did you know that driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal? Driving high will get you a dui. And if you're wondering if law enforcement can tell you're driving high, well, everyone else can.

[Sponsor Voice]

Friends, I can tell you drove high.

[Joe]

Parents, I can tell when you drive high. Relatives, I can tell you drove here high, didn't you?

[Joe (alternate voice or emphasis)]

So what makes you think law enforcement can't.

[Joe]

I can tell if you feel different, you drive different. Drive high, Get a dui. Paid for by NHTSA.

[Sponsor Voice]

This episode brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Shifting a little money here, a little there, hoping it all works out? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can get a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill, too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll help find you options within your budget. Try it [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[Joe]

Gentlemen, how was your weekend?

[OG]

Fair.

[Doug]

Apparently, we all sat on the couch and watched preseason football.

[Joe]

I don't remember. Well, you know what? It was not eventful for you, which is good because we have men and women defending you all weekend long. They were on duty, OG So you didn't have to be.

[OG]

That's right.

[Joe]

That's always a plus. On behalf of the men and women making podcast in mom's basement, the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union who serve our troops, here's a big salute to the troops to kick off our week. Thank you for all you do. Let's go stacks of Benjamins together.

[Doug]

Thanks, everybody.

[Joe (alternate voice or emphasis)]

I naturally snavely being of sound mind and body, to hereby bequeath the following to my wife Rose, who spent money like there was no Tomorrow, I leave $100 and a calendar. To my sons Rodney and Victor, who spent every dime I ever gave them on fancy cars and fast women, I leave $50 in dimes. And to my other friends and relatives, who also never learn the value of a dollar, I leave a dollar.

[Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and have you thought about your legacy? Well, here to help, we welcome you to establish estate planning and charitable giving week on the show. Kicking things off, we'll ask three big estate planning questions to our favorite basement dwelling attorney, Tim Semro. Plus, we'll get Tim's help with a recent headline on life insurance. And don't you worry because I'll also share some of my absolutely incredible trivia. You're gonna love today's dose, Trust me. And now, three guys who just found out their get rich quick skill scheme might take 40 years. It's Joe OG and attorney Tim Semro.

[Joe]

Hey there, Stackers.

[Doug]

I'm like Scooby Doo.

[Joe]

Happy Monday to you, Stackers. Welcome back to another fun week of podcast estate planning and charitable giving week. And the guy who we think is the most charitable guy on this podcast, podcast, getting deep, Doug. Mr.

[Doug]

Okay. Mr. Starting out with lies. You're a damned liar. Joe isn't.

[OG]

The fact that I'm here is my biggest gift to all of you.

[Joe]

It. It truly is. It truly is. And actually, OG we are super happy that we do have the gift that keeps giving to this show. Actually, he's been on it once and he's back for his triumphant return appearance. Attorney Tim Semros here. How are you, man?

[Tim Semro]

I'm doing great. It's great to be back.

[Joe]

It's fun to have you back. How's life in the estate planning world? Is exciting. I think it's like Matlock, right? You do these amazing cases in front of these big juries and okay, yeah.

[Tim Semro]

If I'm standing next to you in court, you're in trouble because I don't even know where to stand in court, so I don't go to court.

[Doug]

That's my lawyer. Awesome.

[Joe]

That is my guy. Well, what he does know, though, is estate planning documents up and down. How long you been practicing estate planning, Tim?

[Tim Semro]

Let's see. Over 20 years now.

[Joe]

Well, we've got some fantastic. Just a couple days. We got some fantastic questions for you and for OG on estate planning that we got from our basement Facebook group from our stackers. So we're going to see if we can make Tim sweat. That's. That's the goal today. Before we get to your questions, though, we got a couple of sponsors who make sure we can keep on keeping on going to hear from them. And then Tim, og, Doug and I. Well, mostly Tim and then some og not very much. Doug and I, I like to. We're going to check. We're going to tackle your questions. Hey, folks, let me ask you a serious question. Did you know that driving high is considered driving under the influence? That's right. Driving under the influence of marijuana is against the law in every state. That means even the states where marijuana is legal. That means driving high could get you a dui. And if you think law enforcement officers can't tell when you're driving high? Well, my friend, you're wrong. If you're high, they can tell. Your friends can tell. Your coworkers can tell. Even your parents can tell. Everyone can tell. So what makes you think that law enforcement officers don't know when you're driving high? You'd be wrong. They can tell, too. Driving under the influence of marijuana can slow your response time and change how you perceive time and speed. So even if you think you're fine to drive when you're high, you're not. Because the bottom line is, if you feel different, you drive different. And driving high is driving under the influence. So remember, drive high. Get a dui. Paid for by nhtsa before the Internet ruled all our lives, AOL brought America Online with email and Instant messenger. By 2000, AOL was so powerful, it set its sights on media giant Time Warner. The deal was supposed to bring us into the future, but instead it became one of the messiest corporate disasters on record. But what went wrong? Was it culture clashes, the dot com crash, or something deeper? Business wars gives you a front row seat to the biggest moments in business and how they shape our world. Because when your flight perks disappear, your favorite restaurant chain goes bankruptcy, or new tech reshapes everything overnight, there's always a deeper story behind the headlines. Follow Business wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. You can binge all episodes of Business wars, the AOL Time Warner disaster, early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. All right, guys, let's start with this really kind of a straightforward question from stacker Nick. Nick actually has two questions, but the basic one, I think, Tim, that most people ask is this. At what point does a trust make sense? So first of all, I think for our new stackers that have no idea what we're even talking about here, can you explain the difference between a trust and a will? And then maybe we'll dive into how a trust makes sense.

[Tim Semro]

Yeah, so a trust avoids probate. A will goes through probate. So if you own something in your own name with no beneficiary, no co owner when you die, that goes through probate. Anything that goes through contract law, which would be like beneficiary designations payable on death designations, they all avoid probate. And trusts are a contract. So a lot of times we use trusts to enhance the probate avoidance. It's not the only way to avoid probate, but it's one way to avoid probate. We can add creditor protection, tax savings, all kinds of things like Protecting people when they have special needs situations, special needs children, all through trusts. So trusts are identical? Different animal. They're more cost up front, but cheaper on the back end because you don't have to go through the probate process.

[Joe]

It almost feels to me, Tim, like a company that kind of continues when you die. Like you become the CEO of a company, and even though you die, the company lives on with these written rules. Is that a fair analogy or is that a bad one?

[Tim Semro]

Yeah, no, I like that we often say that the trust doesn't die, it lives on beyond you. In fact, with a revocable trust, for example, your Social Security number is the ID number of the trust until you die, because people always want to. Does this trust file its own tax return? Well, it becomes a taxpayer after you pass away and files its own tax return. So yeah, I like that that that's how they continue on.

[Joe]

Is there a way to make it a taxpayer on my behalf before.

[Tim Semro]

Before.

[OG]

How do I get it to pay my taxes for me?

[Tim Semro]

Your taxes?

[OG]

Nobody needs to make more money.

[Joe]

If you can make that happen, the. That would be great. Okay, so trust avoids probate. More expense upfront, but cheaper later on. Smoother process later on. At what point does the trust make sense then to Nick's question?

[Tim Semro]

Yeah, and this is a question we get a lot. And actually it annoys me when you'll see attorneys all the time will say, well, if you don't have this number, like you don't have a million dollars, you don't need a trust. Well, it really has to do with what is your situation. So, for example, if you have a special needs child and you have, you know, let's say three or four hundred thousand dollars, you might need a trust to make sure that if you pass away, that child is taken care of and they don't lose their government benefits, things like that. On the other hand, you could have $3 million leaving it all to a charity, and you don't care how they spend it. Well, in that case, you just put a beneficiary designation to that charity, and you don't need a trust. It really has to do with what you're trying to accomplish. Do you have issues with family? Do you have issues with the assets, meaning they're over a certain number, or is the tax laws coming in and invading into your space, then you might need to use a trust to try to avoid taxes.

[Joe]

How onerous is probate really?

[Tim Semro]

I think it's overblown on the. People like to scare the public with how bad Probate is. It's a necessary evil. Right. So if you don't do your own plan or if you just have a will, then you have probate, and all it is is the court making sure that things are properly transferred. However, in order to do that, they need to have notice be sent out to all the beneficiaries of the will and potential beneficiaries. You have to send notice out for creditors to see. So there's all these notices, which means we add time. And then who has to do all this stuff? Well, the attorneys have to do all these filings, and that costs money. So they're right about the fact that it does cost money. It does take a lot of time, but there's nothing scary about it. It's just a process that can be avoided. And ironically, it's usually more expensive than. Than if you just did the planning up front. So it's kind of the last resort.

[Joe]

Yeah. Oh, gee. Tim talked about putting beneficiaries on things. I know you've seen some scary beneficiary designations before, like ones from 20 years ago, where people go, to use Doug's phrase from last week. Oopsie.

[Tim Semro]

Yeah.

[OG]

Ultimately, with the beneficiary thing, I think a lot of people just assume that what they wrote a long time ago in a long time could mean a year is still what's being recorded somewhere. You know, the reality is, is that all of this stuff is electronic now. Right. So somebody's not thumbing through a filing cabinet going, what is Jack's beneficiary? It's what the computer says. It does sound really weird, but there are situations where those files get lost or that information gets erased for some reason, or somebody fat fingers the account number when it's being coded in, and all of a sudden your beneficiary is now this other person that you never heard of for whatever reason, that notwithstanding all the other stuff that can go wrong, like fraud and all that other sort of stuff. So beneficiaries are a very simple way to make sure that your stuff goes to where you want it to, whether it's the trust or your kids or charity or whatever. But you still have to pay attention to it every so often.

[Tim Semro]

Yeah. And this is a really good point, by the way, because I think what happens is a lot of times as time goes by, people move, they open new accounts, and they kind of forget about the fact that they had a beneficiary on their first account. But they don't have beneficiaries on their accounts now. And this is where trusts are really powerful. Because if you have all of your beneficiaries going to the trust and you want to make a change, all you have to do is change one document. And we spend a lot of time on, we call this funding where you get the beneficiary designations. And this is why we tell people, hey, every couple years you need to be looking at your estate plan. We usually sit down with people about every two years and say, hey, what's changed? What accounts have you opened? Have you got a new broker? You know, your beneficiary designations may have fallen off. Or here's a good one, is if you have a certificate of deposit and you put a beneficiary on that and it rolls into the next cd, that beneficiary usually drops off. When it rolls, people just assume that it's still there.

[OG]

Yeah, kids can get older or family members can pass away or you can have new marriages or whatever. I've got a question on this as we're talking about trust, because this came up in a conversation that I had some time ago. So I've got a trust and the trust says that I want all my stuff to go into the trust. And then I've got an account at Fidelity that has no beneficiary because I don't need to have a beneficiary because I have a trust that says all my stuff's supposed to go my trust. Like, I've already written that down. What's going to happen with that Fidelity account? Is Fidelity going to pay attention to the trust or is Fidelity going to say we can't do anything with that because you didn't do our process? Which, which one takes precedent?

[Tim Semro]

Yeah, we run into this all the time because people assume. Or what they'll do is they'll attach a list to their trust and it says, here's all my assets that are in this trust. That's not how it works. You have to remember you. Each account is its own separate entity and it has a contract that says, here's who it pays to at death. If you don't put a beneficiary on there, there's a, somewhere in the fine print says this will pay to your estate, not to your trust, because they don't know you have a trust. So it'll pay to your estate. Then it depends if you have what a normal estate plan would do. When we do a trust, we have what's called a pour over will. And a pour over will. Set it up so that the probate will go into your trust. However, we just took a step through probate that we don't. We just did the estate plan to avoid that. And I always tell people, look, I don't want to be sitting down with your family someday and going through probate. And they say to me, why are everything over? Why are we going through probate? All that does is create more fees for you, Tim. And weren't we supposed to avoid this? Well, yeah, so that's why we spend a lot of time on the beneficiary designations.

[OG]

I think the problem with this one in particular was that it was also a qualified account. And so it wasn't as simple as it's just going to go to my estate by default. It might go to your spouse if living or something like that. And then of course, if it's qualified, then there's distribution rules and requirements based on who is the beneficiary and who's not.

[Tim Semro]

Yet, a lot of that we don't know until after they pass away what the best answer would be. So especially with qualified accounts, we do what's called a layered approach. We'll have spouse, we'll have trust, we'll have the children, and then we can use what they call disclaimers to layer that up and figure out which one is the best one after the fact. Because the laws change, the family situation changes, so it's better to be prepared. And that again, that's why we spend so much time on it.

[OG]

But having it blank is not a good answer.

[Tim Semro]

Blank is bad. Yeah. Especially with a qualified account, you're going to pay to the estate and you're going to end up taking all that tax in the estate.

[Doug]

Yeah, I wish I had that advice before I took the SATs, Tim.

[Joe]

Way back a long, long time ago, when I was a financial planner, we worried about the estate tax. And then for most of the stackers out there, that went away as the estate tax number went up and up and up and up. But my understanding is with a. The new obbb, the estate tax might be coming back for people. Am I right about that?

[Tim Semro]

Well, they've extended a lot of the. The income tax rules in that bill, but what they did for the estate tax is they. They put in a $15 million exemption per person and then it's indexed from there. So really, if we have a married couple, we're at 30 million right now.

[Joe]

30?

[Tim Semro]

Yeah. That still excludes almost every client, but yeah, I mean, there, there always is that chance down the road and that either the client's assets increase above 30 could always happen. Or they could always pull that back when they need more money. And, you know, people will say, well, I don't ever have to worry about the estate tax again. And I always say to them, well, do you think we'll always have a Republican president, Republican Congress? Probably not. It'll probably change. And at that point, the winds could change on how they have these laws. So.

[Joe]

Well, it's like Og and I were talking about last week. Remember this, Doug, what Og was laughing about, somebody who told him, well, now that the tax law is permanent.

[Doug]

Yes, now that it's permanent, let's make some moves.

[Joe]

And oh, gee, starts rolling on the ground with laughter. Is it, is it ever permanent?

[OG]

And on the, on the estate tax side, that's just the federal side. There's, I mean, how many states are there that have their own estate tax with different limits and inheritance taxes, perhaps, which is the other side of the estate tax? Right. So depending on what state you live in, you may be well under 30 million, but you may be well above whatever that limit is for that state.

[Tim Semro]

You do. You have to look at your individual state. A lot of the states have gotten rid of their estate tax now, but there are still some that have either an estate tax or an inheritance tax. And then the sneaky thing people always forget about is they say, look, I don't have an estate tax, I don't have to worry about that. But there are income tax implications. When you have an estate, for example, if you buy a share of stock at a dollar, you sell it at $10, you know, you pay a gain on that $9 gain, you pay a capital gains tax. Well, when you pass away, you get a step up in basis to that value as of death. Well, it depends on who owns that because the decedent is who gets that step up in basis. So a lot of times when we're doing the planning, we're using some clever tools to get the most step up in basis in all the assets from both spouses so we can save income. And that can be thousands of dollars that people didn't realize they were going to have to pay.

[Joe]

You see some of these shortcuts sometimes, Tim, Like a parent will deed the house to a kid before they pass away. Does that kind of ruin some of this step up in basis stuff? I mean, do you end up inadvertently falling into a tax that you wouldn't have had to pay if you hadn't done that?

[Tim Semro]

That's a great point. And we had a client one time where this happened. They said, hey, grandma's going to be going into the nursing home, so she's going to gift away all of her stuff to the kids. And she gifted all her stock accounts and her house to the kids. And then, ironically, she died within six months, so she never even got on Medicaid.

[Doug]

And.

[Tim Semro]

And as a result of that gift, you get what's called carryover basis, which is the same basis she had. So they had to pay that capital gain. If they would have just left it in her name or done some different planning, you could have got that step up in basis and then not paid the. The income tax.

[Joe]

There's so many unintended consequences, I think we find with some of these shortcuts in estate planning. I know one thing an attorney told me a long time ago, you often see that, you know, you'll put your kid's name on your bank account as an example. The kid gets in legal trouble or goes through a divorce, half of that bank account, whatever their name is, my understanding is then is opened. Opened up to that divorce proceeding or that legal challenge.

[Tim Semro]

Yeah. And the argument you try to make is that you funded the account, so it should be to you, but it's up to the judge at that point and they may look at it differently. So you're just opening yourself up to all kinds of potential liability. And there's such easy ways to avoid that. And using simple trust, not even very complex trusts, where we could let the kids have a access to the money, feel like they own it, if that's what you want, but not give them the ownership, which would subject it to their creditors and subject you to having to pay. That.

[Joe]

That sounded like a lot of life at my house. It might be like yours too, OG, where your kids feel like they own your money. I've had kids feel that before.

[OG]

It's really interesting when they ask you for something and you go, well, why don't you use your money? And they go, I don't really want it that badly. You're like, but five seconds ago, you really wanted it when it was my amex card.

[Joe]

It's on your case.

[OG]

When it's yours you don't want, you're good.

[Tim Semro]

All right.

[Joe]

It's amazing how my twins are 30 and yet when I show up in town, I still get to pay for everything.

[Doug]

It's incredible.

[Joe]

Yeah. And actually, I don't mind. That's fine. Tina has a couple of questions for you, Tim, about these terms that you see often, especially on bank accounts, brokerage accounts. You have to choose between joint tenancy with right of survivorship or tenancy in common. What does that mean as it relates to probate or passing property on to heirs?

[Tim Semro]

Yeah, so a tenants in common means you own, let's say you And I are 50% tenants in common owners. That means we each own 50% of the account. And then if I pass away, it goes to whoever my heirs are or if I put a beneficiary designation on there. Whereas if I have joint tenancy with right of survivorship, that means whoever passes away, their interest goes to the other, to the survivor of the two of them. So it's completely different situation. And a lot of states, this gets really tricky with deeds, because some states, if you say to two people and they happen to be married, that's automatically a joint tenancy with rider, survivor, even if you didn't say that. And in some states it's not. It's tenants in common. And you could have. Where the husband dies, everybody thinks it's going to go over to the wife for the full ownership of the house, for example, and all of a sudden half the house is in probate because that's not how that that state happens to read. It works the same with bank accounts. If you want it to be joint with right of survivorship, that means the survivor will get the entire account, which may be what you want, maybe not. And if you put tenants in common, then you need to designate where that's going to go, otherwise it'll end up in probate.

[Doug]

If half your house is going into probate, can you specify like not the half with the kitchen.

[Tim Semro]

It's interesting you say that because tenants in common means you have a 50% right to the entire house.

[Doug]

Damn.

[Tim Semro]

Which is a weird thing. I don't know what that even means. But it's not, it's not like there's a line drawn down the middle and you can say, well, we have. This is your half, this is my half. This is what we get into with the family cottage where the kids end up owning tenants in common. And the one kid says, I'm going to paint the front door purple. And the other kid says, no, I want it green. And so they could just keep painting it back and forth. And they're both have a right to do that. That's one of the extreme examples.

[Joe]

You can paint all of it half. Which makes no sense.

[Tim Semro]

Which makes no sense.

[Joe]

There's also this term that you'll see often in a state, per stirpes. What does perpes even mean?

[OG]

Stripes. They just per.

[Joe]

Stripes yeah, first derbys.

[Tim Semro]

It's Latin.

[Joe]

So one person got it wrong a long time ago and they just left it.

[OG]

They just copy and pasted for the last 30 years.

[Joe]

It's really messed up her stripe. So.

[Tim Semro]

So it's Latin. It means by the stocks. And in almost every state, this is what it means. If you have two kids and you say per stirpes, you're going to have 50% shares to those two kids. If one of those kids has already passed away and has two children and you still have 50, 50 share. It's just the one 50% share is going to drop down to the two grandkids. The opposite of that would be per capita, which means by the heads. And most people don't understand what that is. That would say in that case where the one kid has passed away and you have two grandkids, we divide it into thirds. Everybody says, well, that doesn't make any sense. Now all of a sudden the one child is only getting a third instead of a half. What you really need to know is, does your state have a default of per stirpes or per capita? If you don't indicate, because that can cause some surprises.

[Doug]

Oh, if you put.

[OG]

Or just have a trust, for God's sake.

[Doug]

I was just going to say. Yeah. If you put all of this stuff in a trust, you're going to specify all of that. Can any of that override what your state default is?

[Tim Semro]

The trust is a contract, so it overrides everything. You can agree on anything you want in the trust. That's legal. And then you don't get caught up in these arcane rules that nobody knows about.

[Doug]

He had to slip in the. That's legal.

[Joe]

This is again, though, Tim, assuming that you've made the beneficiary on the account. The trust to the trust.

[Tim Semro]

Yeah.

[Joe]

Or the trust owns it. Yeah.

[Tim Semro]

That's why I said people, you know, and I think this is where attorneys make a lot of mistakes, is as soon as the ink is dried on the signing of the trust document, they're out of there and they hand over the documents and. And they're done. And the, the funding, the beneficiary designations is so important because I could write the best plan ever and it's completely worthless if you didn't do your beneficiary designations.

[Joe]

Well, going back to that company analogy earlier, it's like having a company that's just this empty thing, no machinery in it at all.

[Tim Semro]

Big empty warehouse with nothing in it.

[Joe]

Yeah. Let's move on to Annette's question. She asks what considerations of your state plan need to be made? If you move states often, or even countries like some of our stackers, Tim, are thinking about maybe becoming nomads or expats after retirement. How does that change your state plan?

[Tim Semro]

Yeah, I know. There's actually a whole group that does that where you retire and then you get all your health care on cruise ships. So you take the, you know, when the cruise ship is relocating, you can jump on that cruise ship, get a cheaper rate, and then you can get all your health care there because they have doctors. So some of this depends on. Well, let's start with the states. If you're moving from state to state, it kind of depends on which state you're moving from. As long as you, when you signed it, it was legal in the state that you signed it in, it'll be honored in any other state, but they're going to interpret it under that new state's laws. So we usually tell people, and I just had this happen yesterday, you know, come on in, we'll talk about what the difference is. Maybe we make a couple little tweaks. But if you're in the United States, it's probably not a big change. And we often have clients that will either retire or they move for a job to. I've got clients in Dubai, clients in India, South Korea, a lot of other countries, but they're keeping their U.S. citizenship. So that's the big thing. If you're keeping your U.S. citizenship, most of your plan is going to be under the United States laws and you'll have an United States estate plan. It gets tricky and complicated when you start to open accounts in the new country that you're in. And then sometimes we have to consult with attorneys in the other countries to figure out, okay, Ireland's rules are different than the United States and, you know, stuff like that.

[Doug]

Yeah, I tried that whole health care on the cruise ship thing once, Tim. I got a colonoscopy and I didn't even ask for one. They just, he's here, always made it happen.

[Tim Semro]

That's fantastic.

[Joe]

Doug's up on the lido deck smoking a cigarette after.

[OG]

Can't wait to come back to this cruise.

[Doug]

Still haven't gotten the results.

[Joe]

What happens in these situations? You know, you go to grandma's house and she's got this will from three years ago that looks like it's a genuine will. And then there's stuff from six months ago that looks like it might have been written in crayon, but it clearly is Grandma's penmanship Like, how do we, if we've got multiple will situations, how does that shake out?

[Tim Semro]

Well, so a couple things there. The first is, which will is going to govern? I mean, your most recent will, if it's a valid will, and that's the question, is it a valid will? So if it was handwritten, like in your example, there's very few states that allow holographic handwritten wills. Texas is one of them. But most states, they have to actually be typewritten. And then almost every state requires witnesses on the will. So if you didn't have witnesses and proper execution of that will, then it may not be honored. But those get tricky in the case law because it could be that they signed, they had witnesses, and the court looks at it and wants to honor it because they can kind of tell that was what they wanted to do. But it can get very difficult. Especially we do have this happen with older clients where they start signing wills after they've signed with us. And we don't, we don't know is this really what they wanted or not. And then especially if the witnesses are interested witnesses, meaning their family members or their people are inheriting now, you're going to have all kinds of trouble when you try to prove that out.

[OG]

Yeah, I think two things. Obviously, this is part of the reason why you want to make sure that you have some conversations with people, Tim, on a somewhat regular basis every couple, three years or something like that. Kind of going back to the international thing real quick. Does it matter from a citizenship you mentioned if you have your U.S. citizenship? Does it matter if you have a spouse? Let's say you live in the United States but your spouse is not a US Citizen. What, if anything, do you have to pay attention to for that?

[Tim Semro]

Very much so, because basically the US Looks at that and says, we want to keep these assets under our law. And they know if you leave it to your spouse, that's going to go outside of their law. So there's a whole different set of rules on what the marital deduction is, how much you can leave to them before you start paying estate tax. And so we use special trusts that keep the assets in the United States under their jurisdiction beyond the death of the citizens, so that you don't have this instant taxation or an unexpected tax that comes in.

[OG]

So that might be one of the difference between, do I need a will? Do I need a trust? If your spouse is not a US Citizen?

[Tim Semro]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. If your spouse is not a US Citizen?

[OG]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Tim Semro]

At that point, have to talk to an attorney at that point. Because there are a lot of other rules that come into play at that point too, that we need to pay attention to.

[OG]

What about if you. Oh, you already answered that, which is you're a US Citizen, but you live somewhere else. You said as long as you keep your US Citizenship and I guess mostly your money is in the U.S. you know, you're traveling for work or you're, you know, on a duty assignment somewhere, you know, you're still.

[Tim Semro]

The tricky part is when you do, you're working in another country and they say, well, I'm not a citizen of any specific state. I'm just a citizen of the United States. But you do have to pick a state and you have to have some tie to that state. And my suggestion would be somehow get a. Get a tie to a state that doesn't have an income tax rate because we had a. I just picked that.

[OG]

One because I thought it was a cool state.

[Tim Semro]

He would travel for the military all the time and he was tied to a state that had an income tax and he was paying income tax in that state for his wages. And I said, what? You know, you should establish a different state first before you let out Uncle Sam.

[OG]

For God's sake, pick a different one. Try again.

[Joe]

Quote, unquote, move. Yeah.

[OG]

He's like, I'm from New York. You're like, are you though New York? Really? Try again. Pick a different one out.

[Tim Semro]

But. But there is a way to do that that'll save a lot in taxes.

[Joe]

It could be a ton of money. Coming up in the second half of today's discussion, Tim's going to help us talk about life insurance in your estate plan and long term care. This is the issue that drives everyone crazy. And so we're going to get Tim and OG's take, but it's the halfway point. Which means, Doug, you've got today's date and history and a little bit of trivia for us. What's going on, man?

[Doug]

I got a whole lot of trivia, Joe. Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And with all this talk about estate planning, why don't we focus on a movie people died to be in one based on events that allegedly happened on this date in 1973. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. While mostly fictional, mostly the character of Leatherface in this Benjamin Stacking horror film was based on a real guy named O.J. sorry, Ed Gein, so close. Ed was just slips out sometimes. Ed was mostly your typical midwestern dude. You know, he mowed the lawn in jean shorts. He rooted for the packers, made a mean casserole. Well, he did have this one quirk where he robbed graves and kept trophies of human body parts. Or as Tim Semro would say, decedents. But you know, Ed was a perfectly normal guy. Besides that, the film Texas Chainsaw Massacre amassed a ton of money over the years. Produced for just $300,000, the film went on to gross $30 million in the US alone. While Ed saw none of this money, he was also the inspiration for another film, this one created by famous director Alfred Hitchcock, in which they detail Ed's problems with a domineering mom. Are you listening? Which led to Ed developing what some psychologists might describe as soft skill issues while dealing with patrons of his family owned motel. Here's the question, what Hitchcock film that, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, was also based on Ed Gein's life? I'll be back right after I go dust the living room. Speaking of overbearing moms.

[Joe]

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[Joe]

Hey there, stackers.

[Doug]

I'm feather Dustin fool and guy who loves a good shower, Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. While Ed Gein and I both find our lives dominated by aggressive women, Ed may have taken things a little further than I did. He had a closed off room in his house that was a shrine to his deceased mother. And while I can appreciate my feminine inside from time to time, I mean, who among us can't really? Let's just all. It's probably just me. He, Ed, just like the character.

[Joe]

I love when you make yourself laugh.

[Doug]

I got a little sidetracked there.

[Joe]

Thank God one of us thinks this is funny.

[Doug]

Ed, I'm talking about now, just like the character Hitchcock portrayed in his film loved to dress up in women's clothing. So what was the. The film, of course the character's name was Norman Bates and the Hitchcock film was another Benjamin stacking flick called Psycho. Now let's welcome back to the mic three guys who are psychos about great financial and estate planning advice. Joe Og and Tim Semro.

[Joe]

Yes, we are. Yeah. Have you guys seen those movies? I've never seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No, never saw that one.

[Tim Semro]

I neither.

[Joe]

Yeah, Psycho I saw.

[Doug]

Yeah. I think there's actually a movie like maybe called Leatherface. There's something like very specifically about Ed Gein as well.

[Joe]

I do love that. Isn't that. Speaking of, we're about to talk about insurance, but isn't that a progressive commercial where. Where they keep running into the bar and wearing chainsaw.

[Doug]

How about we get into that running car? Are you crazy?

[Joe]

It's so good. Hey, in the second half we have a special segment which is brought to you by nhtsa. More on NHTSA later. Let's talk about insurances. Another piece of Nick's question from the first half of today's show was about life insurances and I have a piece from Investopedia from about a month ago. This is written by Yasmin Gueramani and Shankar Narayan. Best life insurance with living benefits. And one of the living benefits that people are often interested in, Tim, is this idea of a long term career benefit. Right. Something that covers long term care. But I also know that you may be able to do some advanced planning. But I also know there's some really strict rules around planning. And there's a fine line between fraud and doing this correctly. How do we begin to think about long term care and tying that into our advanced planning?

[Tim Semro]

Well, so the first thing is we could work out and eat correctly.

[Joe]

Oh, crazy.

[Doug]

Oh my God. Get them off the shelf.

[Tim Semro]

We don't do that. That extends your life. However, the things you want to look at is your individual state law. And people usually get upset about the all these restrictive rules for Medicaid and they don't understand why are the states so restrictive. And you kind of have to understand how this starts. So the money comes from the federal government and they give it to the states and say, here's your money for Medicaid. And then they have to make their rules based on what they see, how many people might qualify. And they have to make it basically so it fits into the amount of money that they're given. Otherwise they got to dig in their pockets and find more money. So that's why the different states have all these different rules. And they are very restrictive. And every state is different on their rules. And the other thing is, at least in a lot of the cases we've seen, it's kind of the Wild west too, on which agent gets assigned to your case. So some agents will ask questions on very specific things that other agents won't even ever ask about. So you do have to talk to an attorney in your area about this because they'll know the individual agents that they're dealing with and how your state and your local area of your state is dealing with these rules because it is not uniform by any stretch of the imagination. But generally speaking, what you want to do is if you want to qualify for Medicaid, you have to get your assets under a certain number and you're allowed to keep a certain amount of assets that are exempt and you're allowed to keep a certain amount of income that's exempt. It matters if you're married or not and one of the spouses is at home, and if the other spouse is in care, then that number for the assets might be higher.

[OG]

But either way, it's a really small.

[Tim Semro]

Number, generally speaking, really small number. We're talking $1500, $2000, very small number.

[OG]

If you're not 6 million.

[Tim Semro]

No, but there are the exempt assets, things like house and stuff in most states. And then if you do give away assets, then there's usually what we call a look back period. And the trick of that is, it used to be, let's say you gave a gift of $10,000 to your kids two years ago. They go back and say, all right, two years ago you gave that gift. From that date forward, we do a calculation, and you were ineligible for a certain amount of time. Well, now they've extended that look back period to a farther date, five years in most cases. And instead of saying, okay, four years ago you gave away $10,000, you were ineligible for six months from that date. Now they bring that gift up to today when you're applying, and they apply that disqualification period from today forward. So you really need to know the rules because you have to hold on to enough assets to live for this, for that about a time you can't give away all your assets. And the other thing that people, I was telling you got to be really careful with this because as soon as you start giving away the assets, you don't have control of them anymore. And they'll say, well, my kids will take care of me. And they'll do that. It's a strange thing. All of a sudden, preserving the estate becomes the goal of the kids and not making sure mom and dad have the best care in some circumstances.

[Joe]

This is a tale as old as time, man. I mean, Shakespeare's King Lear kids will take care of me. And then the daughters all go, hey, I got the cash. See you later.

[Tim Semro]

Yeah, it's not always true. I mean, there are a lot of families who, they'll agree on things, but you do have to be careful because as soon as you give up control, you don't have that control anymore. And what I see with my clients is if once they don't have control, they tend to give up sooner. And I think they die sooner because they don't have control over anything anymore. And they don't feel like, you know, life has purpose or something. So you do have to be careful on that. So I try to find ways where they can keep control for the longest amount of time, have access to their assets. And maybe we're going to get on Medicaid, but maybe we're going to avoid Medicaid altogether by using things like long term care, insurance and Paying for it a different way.

[Joe]

I'm looking at this piece OG about best life insurance with living benefits. And they talk about you can tap into the death benefit when you're alive if you develop a terminal chronic critical illness. Sometimes they're called accelerated benefits. They're also, of course, as we were just talking about long term care benefits. Are these a gimmick or are these a good thing for the right person?

[OG]

Well, just kind of dovetailing on what Tim said about the Medicaid thing. I always find it interesting when people are talking about like trying to figure out a way to get the government to pay for things for them. What I usually say is, you remember these are the same people that build our roads. So be careful, like trying to get so poor that the lowest bidder is going to be taking care of your healthcare. You know, at that point I would rather just have a bunch of money and have to pay for it myself than figure out a way to like I'm going to screw the government. It's like, well, who's really getting screwed on this? Yeah, me or the government probably. So be careful with that. But I think a lot is said about the concept of insurance, whether it's life insurance or long term care insurance or disability coverage or any of these, any of these things that have a high magnitude event but a seemingly low probability.

[Tim Semro]

Right.

[OG]

I mean I've had in the last two weeks, three weeks we've talked about it on the show, the car insurance thing with my middle kid. I've talked to a half dozen people about, you know, those sobs are hosing me over my deductible on my, you know, it's like, like it just seems to come up in conversation. And then you take something like long term care insurance, which has a very high cost associated with it. Right. An average cost of care for full time care in a nursing home is probably $8,000 a month across the country on average would be my guess. And you know, you think, okay, that's $100,000 a year. Ronald Reagan lived nine years in a memory care facility. Right. It's like that could be a million dollars. It could be to Tim's point, six months later and grandma kicks the bucket and it's a couple grand or it's 10 years of assisted care and that's a million bucks. So it's a big number if it happens. And the probability of it happening is also really high. Statistically. A couple age 65, one of them is going to need some level of assisted care. Whether that assisted Care happens, you know, every so often somebody comes to the house and says, hey, are you taking your pills? Is everything good or you know, full blown care. And usually it's a continuum, right? It starts in one end and then kind of finishes in full care or sometimes does, right? It's this weird amount of money. It's insanely expensive insurance and the thing that they're most concerned with is what happens if I pay for all this crap and I don't actually use it for some reason. That seems to be the biggest hang up. My perspective on it is that would be the best thing imaginable. You know, it's, it's like your car insurance, right? It's like the goal isn't to stick USAA as many times as you can by having like head on collisions, right? It's like to avoid all of that. You know, it's to say, well gosh, I, how lucky am I, I have a 16 year old that hasn't wrecked a car yet. You know, it's not like those SOBs are bending me over the barrel for $2,500 every six months. I better, better wreck my Nissan one of these days to like get even. So I think we have to shift the paradigm on this a little bit of like it's okay to pay premiums and never use it. That's the, that, that would be the best, especially with long term care. In my opinion, that would be the best thing. So what insurance companies, to answer your question directly, what insurance companies have done is starting to pair products together and say, well, here's a way to prevent that. That, that issue of I paid for it and never, never got anything is, well, we'll just tie it to life insurance. So it's a life insurance product that also is long term care. If you don't use the long term care, we'll kick your beneficiaries a life insurance benefit. Well, okay, guess what? Now you have two insurance policies wrapped in one. What do you think happens to the premium? Are insurance companies like, you know, we make too much money, we should give some back? They're right. If Josh pays for this for the next 20 years, he should get some of this back. Of course not.

[Joe]

Wait a minute. Are you insinuating that insurance companies find a way to stay profitable? Is this what you're insinuating?

[OG]

I mean it's, I'm going out on a limb here. So when you're bundling things together, despite the commercial of bundle and save, you're very likely paying for two things at the same time and there's going to be an added cost. So I would say that if you are the type of person who is hesitant to have assisted care coverage, long term care coverage, because you're worried that you're going to live forever, die in your sleep and never get a benefit out of that, then either reduce the amount that you're, the risk that you're transferring to the third party. So you say, well, I'm going to cover the first three years then of long term care. I just don't want to, I don't want to be on the hook for years four through 10. Or you can look at one of these products that combines two things at the same time. If that makes you sleep better and it covers you for more of a realistic exposure.

[Tim Semro]

I have a question for you on that because I've been in some meetings where these have been discussed. And is your experience that having those hybrid policies that they're efficient, or do you see more often that people are getting a life insurance policy and a long term care policy, you know, the policy that specializes in the problem that they have, rather than getting a hybrid policy that from what I could see, doesn't do either as well?

[OG]

Yeah, I think what's happening is the insurance companies and every, you know, there's hundreds of companies that do this. I think the insurance companies are saying what's the probability and magnitude of each one of these things and pricing accordingly for that. So it's like, okay, I've got a 65 year old couple and they want to have $100,000 of long term care coverage versus $100,000 of 10 year term insurance. What's going to be priced? Well, the long term care coverage is going to be way more expensive because the probability of that happening is much higher. And so then it's going to be priced that way with a little back end of, you know, we'll give you. And it's usually what you get back is the return of premium, you know what I mean? So you think what's happening is you're paying this premium to the insurance company, they're investing it, they're making the returns on the money that you're giving them as premiums. And then they just have to at some point in time, 10, 20 years from now, give you back your premium numbers. They've earned all the growth on it for all that period of time and been able to use that cash for other things. So that's all you're doing really is getting a return of the premium, which you know From a planning standpoint, hopefully if you work through your plan correctly, you can say, well, what's the impact? And by the way, long term care premiums are very expensive, right? This is 5, 6, $10,000 a year, probably. This is really big numbers. So hopefully you can work through your plan and say, what's the impact of having this premium in my plan? And that's the way that I would think about this, literally is kind of two different matrix, right? I have the insurance. I don't have the insurance. I need the insurance. I don't need the insurance. And run your plan with each one of those boxes. So I have it and I need it. What's my plan look like at the end? I have it and I don't need it, so I just pay for it unnecessarily, right? Like, what's my plan look like? Am I still okay wasting the premium? What if I don't have it and I need it? That's really the big box, right? Because there's the other side of this, too. If you have enough assets, you don't need to transfer the risk to the third party. You just go, well, you know, if I or my spouse needs assisted care, we'll just write a check.

[Joe]

And this is why I like starting with risk management, right? What's the risk? How would I handle it? And then figure out where insurance fits versus, you know, nationwide coming to you and going, hey, guess what? We have this insurance. Do you like it?

[OG]

Well, yeah, it's 100% on the outcome of the plan. Because you may look at it and say, while I don't like the premium, I actually have a better outcome in my plan if I pay the premium and don't need it than if I don't pay the premium and pay for it out of pocket. Yeah, it's better for me to waste the premium for 20 years than it is for me to pay for it out of. For my entire plan and for my estate plan.

[Joe]

Then you have a much more known outcome, which frees up tons of other assets. You're not. You're not worried about the rest of the assets. Yeah, yeah. Risk management versus buying insurance. You know, we talk about protecting your future here in the basement. Your money, your job, your relationships, and on today's show, your estate. But one drunk decision behind the wheel that can destroy all of it and cost someone else their life. Don't risk everything you've worked for. Drinking and driving will change your whole world. Whether you get pulled over or get into a crash, things will never Be the same. Getting a sober ride will change your world for the better. Drive sober or get pulled over. Paid for by nhtsa. All right, time for us to mosey out into the community part of the show. Doug, I. It looks to me, looking at your notes, like there's a ton going on in the community.

[Doug]

We have several letters, Joe. A couple of really good ones. Which one do you want me to.

[Joe]

And a few bad hurts. Is that what you're saying? A couple really good ones.

[Doug]

And then the others we are capable of filtering. Do you want to talk about 401k mistakes?

[Joe]

Yeah. Let's talk about what Stacker Mike wrote us.

[Doug]

Okay. Yeah. Stacker Mike sent us a note about our 401k mistakes episode. He said he was listening to SB 1720, how to fix eight of the most common 401k mistakes. And on item two, not adjusting your savings rate when you switch jobs or get a pay raise, you said, that's us. You said, if you're putting in 10%, it allows for a higher dollar amount as you get a pay raise. I think Kiplinger's point was, which is what I do and suggest to others, when you get a pay raise, split it. Give half to your savings rate and half to your lifestyle creep. So if you're saving 10% right now and you get a 2% raise, you change your rate to 11%. If you change jobs and the increase equates to a 20% increase, that's a great opportunity to not only increase your lifestyle, but also your savings rate, not just the dollar amount.

[Joe]

That's a great strategy. Yeah. Yeah.

[OG]

I mean, that's the biggest thing when it comes to lifestyle, especially as you are early in your career. Right, right. And you're, you know, you start out of college, you're making 70 grand. You change jobs now you make 90, you change jobs, now you make 125. It's like when those things happen, a lot of times, it's easy to just kind of pull that into lifestyle as opposed to saying, well, this is a great opportunity to radically change my savings rate, it appears.

[Joe]

By the way, Mike is a. A new listener, and I see here down at the bottom, Doug, he asked what's the best way to comment on the podcast, and there's a few fun ways. I love it. If it's about how the show's made and questions about, like, behind the scenes, feel free to write me [e-mail] I love what he did. Went to the comment section. Also on Spotify, we have a lot of chatter there about the episodes. I really like that we can either somebody on the team or sometimes me. We can chat along with you on that platform. On others like Apple, we can't chat pack, so that one's a little more frustrating.

[Doug]

Don't forget about the basement.

[Joe]

And the basement. Great. Yeah, the basement. Facebook Group Mike, welcome to the Stacker family. Glad you're with us. What else we got?

[Doug]

This one is a pretty interesting story. I love this one as well. Stacker David wrote to us about a recent episode we had on Scams. He says a couple of days late, but what the heck. Tale for a Future Podcast well, here you go David. My wife got a text purporting to be our bank stating we had a questionable transaction. It looks similar to legit comms we'd received in the past, so we were reluctant to just let it go. Quote did you authorize X transaction? End quote. She replied no, but I was already checking the app for parallel security notices, which I found none. She gets a call in response to her no reply and passes the call off to me. I'll admit he was doing pretty good sounding the part asking if we'd approved wire transfers to X person, which we said no. Aside, we'd recently made a major six figure YOLO purchase using wire transfers. I love that. Using wire transfers for the first time right off our freaking phone. I know it's way more secure than other methods, but here we are. What great timing on their part. He went through the checklist. Did we see any transactions to this person? Odd charges on any of our credit card accounts? Any Zelle or Venmo transfers or anything off in the last three days? He was good right up until he said he'd need me to confirm my balance, which I replied, you called me? I'm not providing you with any specific. If you are with X of X fraud insecurity, I'm sure we can find a better way to reconcile our activity. And he said, quote, well, slap your forehead with a dildo and wave it in the air.

[Joe]

You're kidding me.

[Doug]

Nice confirmation. Didn't know X of X had moved on to those versus the old toasters. Hope all is well in the ark.

[Joe]

LA text says David, what a story. And Tim, you work in contracts. I mean your whole day is looking at contracts. Man, these scammers are getting good and the devil's always in the details.

[Tim Semro]

It seems like they are. And you have to be extremely careful. And we're constantly like around the office here warning and we do Phishing simulations. The emails, they're getting so much better. And now with the AI stuff, I think you got to be incredibly, incredibly careful.

[Joe]

Do they fish, you guys? Sometimes trying to pretend they're the client.

[Tim Semro]

What we get is a lot of emails and text messages from title companies that are trying to do a transfer and they want to get client information. And we do not hand out any of that information. You always verify with a phone call with someone we know rather than someone we don't know. And they're tricky too, because you can go, all right, I'm going to look and see if they have a website. Oh, yeah, they'll have a website, right? They'll have an address. Very careful. It's getting very difficult.

[Doug]

I did that once and I can't remember the company I looked up, but I thought, I'm going to call them. And so I went and googled phone number four and it was a fake number. And the only reason I caught it because it wasn't like an 800 number or an 8-877.

[OG]

Those 900 numbers.

[Doug]

Yeah, but I mean, just be careful because they will go to some lengths to, to keep fooling you.

[Joe]

It's so sad.

[OG]

Doug gets numbers and. And they say instead of the rhythm that you're used to hearing like 1-800-862-2232, Doug gets numbers rattled off to him as like 1900-682-3487. And he just types them in.

[Joe]

Sure. And there they go.

[OG]

1900 numbers are the most exciting.

[Doug]

That's weird. Why does it have a plus sign in front of it? I don't get it.

[Joe]

If people want to hear a horrific story about a hacker experience, Stacker Shannon back on July 24, 2017, told us her story. The episode's called Two Banks, One Hacker. 50,000 bucks and all they did. Tim, by the way, to your point about being the title company, she was supposed to Send Wire transfer $50,000 to her through the title company. She gets an email from the title company at the last second. By the way, turns out it was the same email with just one character changed. One character changed. Somebody had been monitoring the conversation, this hacker and said, hey, last minute change. You need to wire it here instead of to this other account. And she was busy. It looked like the same exact email address. So she followed the new instructions and emailed 50,000 bucks to a hacker.

[Tim Semro]

You got to know what your red flags are. And some of the red flags are last minute changes, urgency, you know, all those things are. And then, you know, usually if you hover over the email, you can see that the. It's not the same email that it's purporting to be. It used to be that you could say, well, look at the language. And if the language is not quite the, the English isn't quite right. But nowadays the AI is getting really good at that. Just gotta be very careful.

[Joe]

No, that's well. And kudos to David for going. Wait a minute. You called me?

[Tim Semro]

Yeah. Good job.

[Joe]

That's fantastic. Hey, we got a couple things happening. Number one, on Wednesday, September 3, 8:30pm Eastern, 5:30 Pacific, I'm going to do a live webinar HSA Basics for Beginners, how to use a health savings account. If you've heard us talk about health savings accounts, you have no idea how these things work. And you just need to know the basics. We're going to be doing that. Stackbenchments.com HSA is the way to get that. And then I'm coming to Portland. You guys want to go to Portland with me? Og busy, Tim?

[Tim Semro]

Sure, I'll go to Portland.

[Doug]

Come on, They've got good beer there.

[Joe]

We're gonna be there September 9th with our friends from the Catching up to Phi episode and our good friend Jesse Kramer. We are going to be meeting stackers and catchers and what does Jesse call his. His friends? Piffers flies flies Portland, Oregon. Broadway Grill & Brewery, 6:30pm Stacky Benjamins.com meetup tells us you're coming so we can make sure the venue knows how many, how many stackers we got coming there. So come join us in Portland. I think that's it for the back porch. Tim, man, thanks again for coming back and mentoring our stacker community today. We super appreciate it if people want more from you. I know you were here last time with your book. You deal with this stuff all day every day. How do people find you?

[Tim Semro]

Yeah, and it always starts with a conversation. So we encourage people to reach out. You can go to our website, which is SEMRO S E M R-O Henry H E-N-R-Y.com and reach out and we'll have a conversation.

[Joe]

Awesome. We'll also link to it in the show [e-mail] and thanks a ton again, Tim. All right, Doug, you got it from here, man. We got a list of to dos. What's our big three?

[Doug]

That's right, Joe. First, take some advice from Tim. Semro thinking about your estate plan. Do it now. Don't wait for an event because that event might be the one you need it for. Second life insurance. Choose your coverage based on your goals. If you work backwards, you'll make great insurance decisions. But the big lesson, the most important estate planning tip is this. Don't leave your stuff to strangers. Leave it to Doug. Except your chainsaw after today's trivia. I'm good, man. Huge thanks to Tim Semro for joining us. For more on Tim or for a copy of his book, head to semrohenry.com hit the trust book link at the top of the website. For his book, watch Walking the Dog. I got you covered. I'll have my people add a [e-mail] in our show notes for today's episode. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025, and is created by Josal Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh, yeah. And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[Joe]

Welcome to the after show. Doug, you were telling us a week ago about a scam in progress, Right?

[Doug]

A couple of weeks ago, I was staying with some friends. One morning, I come upon them both hovering over their laptop, and they're kind of in a.

[Joe]

And they're starting to figure out that you staying with them has been a huge scam all along.

[Doug]

What the hell is he still doing here?

[Joe]

Wait, they're on to me.

[Doug]

And they had gotten a call from their financial advisor first thing in the morning asking if they were really buying a new piece of property for $100,000. And they said, no, we're done. Like, we. We moved here. We're not buying any more property. Somebody had gotten the password for their email, had cruised through all of their emails, got tons of personal details, and then sent an email to their financial planner and said, we just found this property. We just fell in love with it. We need you to transfer $100,000. To what? We just opened this new bank account. Transfer 100,000 to our new bank account. They had a ton of Details, use personal names, use the location of the town, where they were, where they were buying. Like, it looked like they saw the email, the financial planner shared it with them. They were shocked at how this person knew everything. They knew everything because they got into the email, found the name and the number of the financial planner, and, you know, thank God that that planner had a process and a policy in place that said, we don't do anything unless we talk to our clients directly. And yeah, it was just pretty shocking that, that that had happened that soon after they moved there. So it was also kind of timing is everything. Like the story that we heard earlier from David, I think it was, who said they had just done 100, you know, six figure YOLO purchase. My friends had done something similar. They had only recently moved up there. And so it all fit. Like the timing all seemed to their financial planner, it seemed like, well, yeah, this could happen. This is plausible.

[Joe]

Sure.

[Doug]

Unbelievable what timing can do to steal people's money.

[Tim Semro]

I had a situation that, you know, it's not just when things have changed. We had the bank that we use for the law firm called us and we've used this bank for a really long time. They called us just to do one of those final checks and they said, hey, so we're about to transfer that money that you asked to your, your separate account in Texas. And I'm like, we don't, we don't have a new account. What are you talking about? And they're like, they were so embarrassed. They're like, oh my goodness, I can't believe we got this far. At least it caught it. But they had gotten that far where they were ready to send it and this was their final, final check. And. Yeah. Wow. So even if it's a relationship you have all the time, you always vigilant.

[Doug]

Oh, geez. Just now realizing how close he was to getting that money.

[OG]

So close.

[Tim Semro]

How they knew everything.

[Doug]

Son of a.