Estate Planning and Digital Assets
Estate planning in Connecticut often involves a range of documents and tools to ensure that assets are protected and that family members, loved ones, and charitable entities will be able to receive those assets smoothly after your death. The specific documents that make up a person’s estate plan will depend in part on the types of assets they own and how they want to leave them to beneficiaries. Sometimes estate planning tools used will also depend on the details of the beneficiary, since certain types of trusts may be necessary to provide for minor children or for adult children with disabilities. Estate planning can address all of your assets, from real estate to stocks to furniture. Digital assets are one type of asset that have become more common relatively recently in estate planning processes.
If you own digital assets, you may be wondering if you can incorporate these assets into your estate plan, and whether you need to take additional considerations into account. An experienced Connecticut estate planning lawyer can assist you with digital assets in your estate plan, and we can also provide you with more information about how these assets can require additional steps so that they can be protected and ultimately inherited by your loved ones.
What is a Digital Asset?
Digital assets are assets that are “stored electronically and can be bought, sold, owned, transferred, or traded,” according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Digital assets are considered to be property, as opposed to currency, when that distinction is relevant for tax purposes in estate planning.
Digital assets include the following, according to the IRS:
- Convertible virtual currencies;
- Cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin);
- Stablecoins; and
- Non-fungible tokens (or NFTs).
Leaving Digital Assets to Beneficiaries
If you own any digital assets, it is important to consider them as part of your property when you are working on estate planning documents and tools. Since digital assets are property, they can be inherited by your loved ones and can be left to loved ones through various estate planning tools. In order to begin considering options for protecting your digital assets and ensuring that your loved ones can inherit them, it will be important to keep a detailed list of all digital assets you own, as well as detailed information for accessing them wherever they are stored.
You can work with an estate planning attorney to ensure that any powers of attorney you create concerning financial decision-making abilities properly address digital assets, and you can discuss how your loved ones can inherit your digital assets through a will or can be made beneficiaries of a trust that holds your digital assets.
Contact a Canton, Connecticut Estate Planning Lawyer
Whether you need assistance with estate planning that will involve digital assets or you have more generally questions about estate planning in Connecticut, it is important to seek legal advice. An experienced Canton estate planning attorney at the Law Office of Brian S. Karpe can talk with you today about the details of your estate and your options for ensuring that loved ones inherit your assets according to your wishes. Contact us today to learn more about the estate planning assistance we provide to adults of all ages in Connecticut.
Sources:
irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/digital-assets
ctprobate.gov/pages/trustsestates.aspx
