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FEATURE STORY
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Get Graphic
Computer-generated images to enhance
your client and group presentations are easily created; some are even
ready-made
By Donald H. Kelley
Trusts-and-estates practitioners have a continual need to explain how
various planning techniques work. This is hard to do with words alone.
Visual representations can greatly enhance your ability to communicate
with clients and groups. But even while pictures, flowcharts and
diagrams are a tremendous help, they are time-consuming to create.
Therefore, as you consider purchasing general estate-planning
software, also be sure to check out the programs' graphics and
presentation capabilities, including software applications and
slideshows that graphically display planning concepts. The article "The
Impact of Technology on How Advisors Do Business," Trusts &
Estates, June 1999, by Carolyn Yamasaki, a former investment advisor
with PGR Advisors in Honolulu, discusses the mechanics of working with
graphics in communicating plan content. To find this and other
T&E articles, log in to the archive at trustsandestates.com.
Commercial Graphic Presentations
Free-standing graphic communication programs also can be extremely
helpful, as well as applications that calculate and graphically display
the results of planning techniques. Here are some examples of
free-standing presentations:
Leimberg Associates, Inc.'s "Toward a Zero
Estate Tax" is a PowerPoint slide presentation on such topics as
estate tax basics, annual exclusion gifts, planned giving and sales,
Internal Revenue Code Section 303 redemptions, Section 6166 estate tax
deferrals and family limited partnerships (FLPs). This broad-based
estate-planning presentation features state-of-the-art tools, techniques
and strategies and comes with handouts and a speaker's script.
WealthTec Counselor
consists of PowerPoint presentations that address estate planning,
charitable planning, qualified plans and individual retirement accounts,
plus the requirements, tax treatment, advantages and potential drawbacks
of each technique. The program may be purchased as a standalone or as
part of the publisher's WealthMaster
or Foundations
modeling programs.
zCalc Presentations is a
series of PowerPoint presentations covering a variety of estate-planning
topics such as grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs) and grantor
retained unitrusts (GRUTs), as well as charitable planning techniques.
The program is available either as a standalone or as part of the zCalc Tool
Box. The content was created by Howard Eisenberg of WealthTec. You may obtain a 30-day
demo from
Thomson Corporation.
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Commercial Estate-Planning Programs
There are several commercial software packages that collect data,
calculate results and integrate those results into visual presentations
for estate planning. As you consider purchasing of one of these
products be sure to evaluate the flowcharts, graphics and other client
communication materials that it generates. Some of these packages are:
BNA
Estate Planner is a full-featured estate-planning program. It
generates a summary report that includes graphs, flowcharts and
PowerPoint presentations, which can be supplemented with slides from the
Presentation Wizard Library. The publisher's website includes an online
preview of the program and a 30-day trial.
Creative Edge Estate Planning
Power Pak is a web-based retirement/financial/charitable planning
application that computes the results of selected planning techniques
and presents them in an animated slideshow. The site includes
retirement calculators with graphs. A free trial subscription is
available.
Intuitive
Estate Planner is a software application of which I am the designer.
The program conducts comprehensive estate-planning calculations for
federal and state estate tax, charitable trusts, GRATs and GRUTs,
planned sales (including self-canceling installment notes and
intentionally defective irrevocable trusts) and business organization
balance sheets with flowcharts. The program, which is published by
Thomson/West, includes a built-in slideshow covering basic concepts and
advanced estate-planning techniques. An online demo is available, as
well as a 30-day trial.
Charitable-Planning Presentations
There are programs that compute and report the outcome of charitable
giving techniques using graphic slides, diagrams and flowcharts. These
programs include:
Crescendo
Presents runs on a computer-operated or web-based platform and
includes multimedia presentations for one- and two-life unitrusts and
annuity trusts, retirement unitrusts, sale and unitrust combinations,
unitrusts and life insurance, and current gift annuities. Based on the
donor information you enter, this product creates an on-screen gift
presentation complete with dynamic charts and audio explanations. The
program may be purchased as a standalone or as part of the publisher's
Crescendo
Pro, Estate
and Lite
products. Samples of web-based presentations by organizations using Crescendo
Presents are available from Crescendo Interactive. A
90-day trial is available.
PhilanthroCalc,
based on Excel, performs the charitable deduction calculations for
charitable trusts and other techniques. The program runs on Windows
operating systems or on a web-based platform. PhilanthroCalc
provides detailed reports, incorporating text, graphs and diagrams
explaining the derivation of the calculations. A 30-day trial is
available.
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Ready-Made
Presentations
There also are a number of slideshows and client handouts available --
free of charge from various bar associations and private firms --
address specialized information and planning techniques. Some examples:
Steven B. Gorin of Thompson Coburn LLP in St. Louis, William S. Forsberg
of Parsinen Kaplan, et. al. in Minneapolis, Stephen E. Parker of
JPMorgan Private Bank in Atlanta, and Rana H. Salti of Winston & Strawn
LLP in Chicago presented "Closely
Held Businesses, Techniques for Minimizing Estate Taxes" at the 2006
Joint Fall Meeting of the American Bar Association's Real Property,
Property and Trust Law (RPPT) and Tax Sections. The presentation, which
covers gifts, GRATS, irrevocable grantor trusts, life insurance, private
annuities and entity recapitalizations is available from the ABA RPPT
Section in PDF format.
Mark M. Christopher, partner at Palmer & Dodge LLP in Boston, presented
"Estate
Planning for Venture Capitalists and Owners of Venture Capital"
before the estate-planning committee at the Boston Bar Association on
Dec. 18, 2005. This online slideshow discusses valuation, transfers
and dispositions of business interests.
Dave Goeller, a former transition specialist at the University of
Nebraska, and Joe M. Hawbaker, a private practitioner in Omaha, prepared
"Farm/Ranch
Transition & Estate Planning," available from the University of
Nebraska, Cooperative Extension Service as a PDF slideshow that
emphasizes the need for estate-planning for farm and ranch clients.
From the Sheffield Law Offices comes "Retirement
Plans and Trusts," a PDF slideshow outlining retirement trust
planning techniques, such as stretch IRAs, conduit trusts and standalone
retirement trusts.
Bourland, Wall & Wentzel,
P.C. offers free educational downloads in PDF and PowerPoint formats
of firm members' presentations, including "Charitable Tax Planning
Techniques in Business Succession Plans," "Creating Private Foundations"
and "Charitable Tax Planning Techniques in Business Succession Plans."
Capital Trust Company
of Delaware provides visually robust PowerPoint presentations and an
array of other documents on basic and advanced estate-planning
techniques, including charitable trusts, special needs trusts, private
annuities, installment sales to defective grantor trusts, FLPs,
generation-skipping trusts, GRATs, restricted management accounts, IRAs
and total return unitrusts.
With Adobe Reader 7 or 8, you can view PDF files as a slideshow by
saving the file from the website, launching it in Adobe Reader and
clicking on the "Full Screen View" icon at the lower left corner of the
screen.
You can, of course, construct your own PowerPoint slideshows or create
PowerPoint slides to supplement the presentations. The techniques and
nuances of client or group communication with PowerPoint are discussed
in Trusts & Estates' September 2006 Technology Review
article "So
You Think You Know PowerPoint." For other such articles, check out
the e-newsletter archive at trustsandestates.com.
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Bottom Line
The programs and PowerPoints I've mentioned in this article are all
intended to help you deliver clear presentations in a time-efficient and
effective manner. Because you don't have to start from scratch, you can
create presentations with less effort and greater ease. Existing,
content-rich and visually robust programs and presentations serve as
valuable points of departure for communicating with your audience and
addressing clients' needs.
Trusts & Estates magazine is pleased to present the monthly
Technology Review by Donald H. Kelley -- a respected connoisseur
of software and Internet resources wealth management advisors use to
further their practices.
Kelley is a lawyer living in Highlands Ranch, Colo. and is of counsel to
the law firm of Kelley, Scritsmier & Byrne, P.C. of North Platte, Neb.
He is the co-author of Intuitive Estate Planner Software (Thomson - West
2004). He has served on the governing boards of the American Bar
Association Real Property, Probate and Trust Section and the American
College of Tax Counsel. He is a past regent and past chair of the
Committee on Technology in the Practice of the American College of Trust
and Estate Counsel.
Trusts & Estates has asked Kelley to provide his unvarnished
opinions on the tech resources available in the practice today. His
columns are edited for readability only. Send feedback and suggestions
for articles directly to him at dhkelley@qwest.net.
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