Sharing data with kin is a vital annual task

By Jonathan Kern
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, January 1, 2011

Every year about this time, as a favor to my wife and family, I imagine myself dead.

I don't do this to be ghoulish or to make myself feel appreciated while I'm still alive. I do it because we have a division of labor in our family. And it's been my job to handle investments, file tax returns, pay bills and keep the financial records. So once a year, I send a letter to my wife (and a copy to my daughter and brother) explaining how I do those chores and where vital records can be found - just in case one day I'm suddenly not around to take care of things myself.

Of course, a death doesn't have to be sudden to create financial problems, even if you think you're prepared. When my father died in July, my brother and I had already taken over nearly all his finances. We knew about his stocks, bonds and bank accounts. We paid all his utilities and even wrote checks to the fellow who mowed his lawn and the couple who cleaned his house. Most important, we knew where his will was.

But there was a lot we needed to know that is never mentioned in a will. For example, we had no idea what life insurance policies he had or who the beneficiaries were. We didn't have the deed to his house. And while there was no federal estate tax in 2010, the IRS doesn't let beneficiaries off the hook entirely: We will still need to file a form to show how much my father's assets increased in value since they were acquired. To uncover that information, we had to sift through six file cabinets crammed with fifty years worth of my dad's papers, looking for any record of the purchase price of his house, the cost of improvements made over the years and what he paid for stocks in the 1970s.

(More here.)

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