When to Involve an Accountant in Estate Planning Conversations
Estate planning attorneys are often the first call someone makes when thinking about a will, a trust, or how to pass on a business. But some of the most costly mistakes in estate planning are not legal mistakes at all. They are tax and financial mistakes that surface only after the documents are signed and it is too late to restructure cleanly. Knowing when to bring an accountant into the conversation (and not just at tax season!) can be the difference between a plan that works on paper and one that actually holds up.
For attorneys, the question is rarely whether accountant involvement in estate planning adds value. It almost always does. The harder question is when during the process should that involvement start.
Business Ownership Interests
When a client owns an interest in an S corporation, partnership, or closely held business, the estate plan cannot be separated from how that ownership interest is structured for tax purposes. Transferring shares, restructuring a family limited partnership, or setting up a buy-sell agreement all carry tax consequences that an accountant needs to model before the attorney can finalize any documents. Waiting until after a trust is drafted to ask how a transfer will be taxed often means redoing work that could have been avoided.
Gifting Strategies and Lifetime Transfers
Lifetime gifting is one of the most common estate planning tools, and it is also one of the easiest to get wrong without accounting input. Annual exclusion gifts, use of the lifetime exemption, and generation-skipping transfers all require careful tracking on IRS Form 709, and the interaction between gift tax and estate tax exemption amounts changes depending on current law. An accountant can model the actual tax impact of a gifting strategy before the attorney puts it into a plan, rather than after a client has already made an irreversible transfer.
Basis Planning and Step-Up Considerations
One of the most overlooked areas in estate planning is basis. Assets that receive a step-up in basis at death are treated very differently than assets gifted during life, which carry over the original basis. A plan that moves highly appreciated assets out of an estate through lifetime gifting, without considering the loss of step-up, can create a much larger capital gains tax bill for heirs than if the same assets had simply been held until death. This is exactly the kind of analysis that belongs on an accountant’s desk before a strategy is finalized, not after.
Trusts With Ongoing Tax Filing Obligations
Certain trust structures, including irrevocable trusts and complex grantor trusts, come with their own ongoing tax filing obligations once they are funded. Attorneys who draft these documents are not always the ones who will prepare the trust’s tax returns for the next twenty years. Bringing an accountant into the conversation early helps confirm that the trust is structured in a way that is administratively realistic, not just legally sound, and helps the client understand what recurring costs and filings to expect.
Estate Tax Exposure and Changing Exemption Amounts
Federal estate tax exemption amounts have shifted significantly over the past decade and are subject to further legislative change. A plan built around today’s exemption level may not hold up if the exemption changes before the client’s death. Accountants who track these thresholds closely can help attorneys build flexibility into a plan, such as disclaimer provisions or formula clauses, so the plan continues to work even if the tax law underneath it shifts.
Charitable Giving as Part of the Plan
When charitable giving is part of an estate plan, whether through a charitable remainder trust, a donor-advised fund, or a direct bequest, the tax treatment depends heavily on how and when the gift is structured. An accountant can help determine whether a lifetime gift or a bequest at death produces a better outcome for both the client’s tax situation and the charity’s interests.
A Practical Rule of Thumb for Attorneys
Not every estate plan needs an accountant at the table from day one. A simple will for a client with modest, straightforward assets may not require it. But once a plan involves a business interest, a trust with ongoing filing requirements, meaningful lifetime gifting, or estate tax exposure near current exemption levels, looping in an accountant early tends to save both time and money compared to correcting course later.
The strongest estate plans are usually the ones where the attorney and the accountant are working from the same set of assumptions from the start, rather than reconciling two separate views of the client’s financial picture after the documents are already drafted.
