Free online workshop
When someone you love dies, a great deal falls to the family at the hardest possible time. This session covers the decisions in that first year that carry real money behind them, and when each one tends to arrive.
The topic
When someone dies, the world does not pause. In the middle of grieving, a great deal falls to the family: calls to make, forms to sign, accounts to sort out. It arrives at the hardest possible time, and it rarely falls evenly. Usually one person ends up carrying most of it.
Most of that work is simply work, and you will get through it. But a handful of decisions in that first year have real money behind them, and a few of them have deadlines. Those are worth understanding in advance, because they are the ones you cannot revisit later.
This session walks through those decisions in the order they tend to arrive. Not the paperwork, and not a to-do list. The moments where a choice is being made, whether or not anyone realizes it.
We’ll follow one family through it: Ken and Yoshiko, married fifty years, and their daughter Michelle. Yoshiko ran the money for all of those years. The session covers Ken’s first year on his own, and what it looked like to have someone in his corner for it.
What we’ll cover
The final tax return, and the window that closes with it. The year a spouse dies, the survivor still files as married — but only that year, which makes it a useful one.
The house, and whether to stay or to move. This is the heaviest decision of the year, and a highly personal one. We’ll look at the financial and tax weight sitting behind it, including the reasons staying can make good sense.
Retirement accounts a spouse inherits. A surviving spouse is treated far more gently than any other heir, and knowing that changes what you do next.
Social Security, when two checks become one. Which benefit continues, and the timing choice that is easy to get wrong on your own.
The year after, filing on your own. What changes when the tax picture shifts from two people to one, and the planning worth doing before it does.
Giving, continued. For people who have supported a church or a food bank for years, there is a way to keep doing it that is considerably gentler on taxes.
The goal is not to turn you into a tax expert. It is that you recognize these moments when they arrive, and know that they are handled.
Who this is for
This session is built for people helping a parent who has recently been widowed, and for those who can see that day coming and would rather understand it in advance. It is equally useful to couples who want to know what the survivor will face, while both of them are here to talk about it.
This is the second of two sessions in the Money and Aging series, and it stands on its own. You don’t need to have attended the first one.
No financial background is needed, and you are welcome to pass the link to a sibling, a parent, or anyone else who would want to hear it.
About the presenter
Etu Financial
Eric is licensed as both an investment adviser and a tax professional. He offers integrated financial planning, wealth management, and tax preparation for families and their small businesses, fully remote.
Both sessions cover the same material.
Choose the time that works best for you.
This workshop is educational in nature and is provided free of charge. It does not constitute individualized investment, tax, or legal advice, and no advisory relationship is formed by attending. The examples presented are hypothetical and are used for illustration only; they do not represent any actual client and are not a prediction of any particular result. Tax law is subject to change.
Attendees may be invited to schedule a complimentary consultation following the workshop, during which advisory services may be offered. There is no obligation to do so.
Etu Financial is a registered investment adviser in the State of California. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training.