Estate & Legacy
An estate plan is the difference between wealth that transfers on your family's terms and wealth that transfers on the terms of the state, the IRS, or a court. Yet most estate documents are signed once, filed away, and never reconciled against the business, the tax plan, or the way the family's wealth has actually grown in the years since. A plan that was right a decade ago is often quietly wrong today.
Ascent coordinates the design of an estate plan that reflects your entire balance sheet (the business, the structure beneath it, the protection plan, and your intentions for the people and causes you care about) and we make sure the strategy is settled before the documents are drafted. Depending on your circumstances, that can include the coordination of wills and trusts, alignment of beneficiary designations and account titling so they actually match the plan, planning for the liquidity an estate needs, and continuity and key person arrangements for business owners whose families depend on the company.
Estate planning is where the other four disciplines come together. Your structure determines what passes and how, your tax strategy determines how much survives the transfer, and your protection plan determines what is shielded along the way. When these are designed separately, they tend to contradict each other. When they are designed as one, they reinforce each other.
Our role is strategy and coordination. Your estate attorney drafts and executes the documents. We design the strategy and quarterback the attorney, the tax plan, and any insurance-based liquidity solutions (arranged through appropriately licensed providers) so that every piece agrees and nothing is left to be discovered at the worst possible time.
A 30-minute conversation tells you everything.
No deck. No pitch. We'll listen to what you've built, ask the questions most advisors don't, and tell you honestly whether we think we can help.
Ascent Wealth Strategies provides strategic planning, design, and coordination. We are not a law firm or an accounting firm, we do not provide legal advice or prepare tax returns, and we do not provide investment advisory services or manage client assets. Strategies are implemented by your licensed attorneys, accountants, and other professionals, who are responsible for their execution.