You spent years building something. A practice, a business, a portfolio, a home, and a set of habits your children watched you keep.
At some point the question changes. It stops being “How do I build this?” and becomes “What happens to it after me?” That is bigger than a beneficiary form.
Cerulli Associates projects that roughly $124 trillion will change hands through 2048. Visa’s economists put the figure for baby boomers closer to $36 trillion, once longer retirements, spending, and taxes are subtracted. No one knows the real number. What a family can influence is whether the money arrives with a plan attached.
Start With Shared Goals, Not Shared Accounts
Money conversations usually begin with mechanics. Who gets what, which account, which document. Those details matter, but they come last. Start with a question: what is this money for?
A 68-year-old parent, a 42-year-old daughter, and a 16-year-old grandson will answer differently. The parent may care most about staying financially independent. The daughter may be weighing her own retirement against her children’s education.
Shared goals do not require agreement on everything. They require enough clarity that a decision in one generation does not quietly undermine another. Most families can align on a few:
- Keeping the parents independent for life through a durable retirement planning strategy, so support flows down rather than up
- Helping fund education for grandchildren without straining retirement income
- Keeping a family property in the family, with a realistic plan for what it costs to maintain
Write them down, then revisit them. Goals set at 60 rarely survive unchanged to 80. This is where every financial planning relationship starts.
Teach Responsibility Without Creating Entitlement
Parents raise this more than almost anything else. Give too little and you withhold real opportunity. Give too much, too early, and without context, and you may weaken the habits that built the wealth. There is no formula, but there are patterns.
Share information before you share assets. A young adult who has managed a modest account or sat through a family meeting is better prepared than one who simply receives a check.
Attach purpose to gifts. For 2026, the federal annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient and the lifetime basic exclusion is $15 million per individual under Public Law 119-21. Those limits create room. They do not create context. A gift tied to a first home, a graduate degree, or a business launch teaches something a transfer alone does not.
Let them practice while you are here. An adult child working through a $5,000 mistake, with you available to talk it through, is more useful than that lesson arriving much larger later.
Gifting carries tax and estate consequences, so coordinate with your CPA and attorney first. If education funding is part of the picture, our article on financial planning for education goes deeper.
Structure the Family Business for the Next Generation
Michigan runs on family businesses. Suppliers and dealerships built by automotive professionals, practices built by physicians and dentists, firms built by attorneys. For many of those families, the business is the largest asset, the primary income source, and the emotional center of the estate at once.
PwC’s 2025 US Family Business Survey, published in March 2026, found that succession planning affected 44% of US family firms over the prior year, and pointed to leadership continuity, not ownership transfer alone, as the emerging priority.
That distinction matters. Ownership transfers with documents. Leadership does not. Four questions surface the real issues:
- Does the next generation want to run this, or do they feel obligated?
- Are ownership and management the same decision, or can they be separated?
- What happens to the children who are not involved?
- Could the business operate for 90 days without you?
Structure follows those answers. We work with business owners on the planning and risk management side, and coordinate with the attorney and CPA who draft and file the documents. If personal retirement savings have taken a back seat to the business, our article on catch-up retirement steps for business owners is a useful companion.
Manage Family Dynamics With Better Communication
One PwC finding surprises people. Among US family businesses, 93% said they have a clear company purpose, but only 53% said they regularly communicate it within the family.
Clarity at the top does not travel on its own.
Families assume their intentions are obvious. They rarely are. Silence gets filled with guesses, and guesses harden into resentment later. A few habits help:
- Hold a family meeting on a schedule rather than during a crisis
- Separate the what from the why. Heirs handle an unequal decision better when they understand the reasoning
- Decide who knows what, and when. Full transparency is not required. Predictability is
- Include spouses thoughtfully. They influence decisions whether or not they are in the room
Build Legacy Systems That Outlast Any One Generation
A plan built around one person’s judgment ends when that person does. Systems last longer, which is the heart of the engineer’s approach to wealth building. In practice:
- A written statement of the family’s financial values and intentions
- An annual review, plus check-ins after a death, sale, marriage, or health event
- Documented roles, so the trustee, executor, and power of attorney are named and know it
- Coordination among your advisor, CPA, and attorney, so all three work from the same picture
- A path for the next generation to inherit relationships, not only accounts
Legacy means something specific in planning: what continues without you. That idea is also where our firm’s name comes from.
Turn Good Intentions Into a Plan
Most families intend to handle this well. Fewer get to it, because it never feels urgent until it suddenly is. Start smaller than you expect. Name the goals. Decide who needs to know what. Look honestly at whether the business could run without you. Then coordinate the tax and estate pieces with your CPA and attorney.
At The Valletta Group, we help business owners, executives, and medical, legal, and automotive professionals think through these decisions as part of a broader plan. Martin J. Swiecki, CFP®, CLU®, brings an engineering-based approach to connecting investment management and legacy priorities into one picture.
To schedule a meeting, call (248) 720-1780, email mswiecki@vallettagroup.com, or contact The Valletta Group.
Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only and should not be considered individualized investment, tax, or legal advice. Tax rules may change and should be reviewed with a qualified tax professional. The Valletta Group does not provide legal or tax services. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is multi-generational wealth planning?
Multi-generational wealth planning is the process of coordinating financial decisions across two or more generations so that goals, expectations, and structures line up. It may include retirement income for the older generation, gifting and education funding for younger family members, family business succession, and the estate documents that carry those intentions out. The goal is not simply to transfer assets, but to prepare the people receiving them. The Valletta Group helps families in Northville and across Southeastern Michigan connect those decisions into one plan.
How can I leave money to my children without creating entitlement?
There is no single answer, because it depends on your family, your values, and the amounts involved. Many families find it helps to share information before assets, to attach a stated purpose to gifts, to give in stages rather than all at once, and to let adult children manage smaller amounts while parents are still available to talk decisions through. Gifting also carries tax and estate consequences that should be reviewed with a CPA and an attorney. Martin Swiecki works with families to structure these conversations alongside the broader financial plan.
When should a family business owner start succession planning?
Earlier than most owners do. PwC’s 2025 US Family Business Survey found that succession planning affected 44% of US family firms in the past year and identified leadership continuity as a growing priority. Practically, that means separating who owns the business from who runs it, being honest about whether the next generation wants the role, and planning for the children who are not involved. The Valletta Group works with business owners on the planning and risk side of succession and coordinates with the attorneys and accountants who prepare the documents.
Sources
1. Cerulli Associates: “Cerulli Anticipates $124 Trillion in Wealth Will Transfer Through 2048,” December 2024. (cerulli.com)
2. CNBC: reporting on Visa Business and Economic Insights’ 2026 wealth transfer estimate, July 2026. (cnbc.com)
3. Internal Revenue Service: “What’s new — Estate and gift tax,” basic exclusion amount of $15,000,000 for calendar year 2026 under Public Law 119-21. (irs.gov)
4. Internal Revenue Service: annual gift tax exclusion of $19,000 per recipient for 2026. (irs.gov)
5. PwC: US Family Business Survey 2025, published March 16, 2026. (pwc.com)