Estate Planning That Protects Your Legacy in Houston
Your wealth isn’t just for today – it’s for the people and causes that matter most. Our Houston estate planning team helps you create a plan that reflects your values and protects what matters most.
- Provide for loved ones
- Fund projects that align with your values
- Generational impact
What will your wealth say about you when you’re gone?
Protect what matters. Inspire what’s next.
A legacy that shares your values
At Concenture, we specialize in legacy and charitable giving strategies that align with your goals. Here’s how we can help:
- Family First: Protect your loved ones with inheritance and estate strategies
- Give With Impact: Support charities and causes with tax-smart giving options
- Simplify the Process: Consolidate and streamline your wealth for easy transitions
- Think Ahead: Plan for future generations with trusts, endowments, or gifts
Helping you build more than wealth
Three steps to building your legacy
Share your vision
Tell us about your family, faith, and the projects or causes you’re passionate about.
Create your plan
We’ll design a strategy that connects your wealth to your goals and values.
Make an impact
Put your plan into motion, making a difference now while building a lasting legacy.
What an estate planning advisor does
An estate planning advisor handles the financial side of your estate plan. Your attorney drafts the will, the trusts, and the powers of attorney. We make sure the accounts behind those documents line up with them: how each one is titled, who is named on it, and the tax your heirs may owe.
That division matters, because the two halves are usually handled by people who have never spoken to each other. A will can be word perfect and still be overridden by a form you signed in 1998.
We’re not a law firm and we don’t draft documents. What we do is read your plan alongside your accounts and flag where the two disagree, then work with your attorney and CPA to close the gap. If you don’t have an estate attorney yet, we can connect you with one. Our list of questions to ask a financial advisor covers what to ask any Houston firm about how that coordination works.
Where estate plans accounts drift apart
Beneficiary designations control retirement accounts and life insurance, and they outrank your will. A beneficiary designation is the form you filled out when you opened the account, naming who receives it when you die. When it and your will disagree, the form generally wins.
After a thirty-year career with one or two Houston employers, most people hold accounts at several institutions, each with its own form filled out at a different point in life. Marriages, divorces, births, and deaths keep changing who should be named.
Take an illustrative example. A 401(k) is left behind at an employer in the 1990s, naming a sibling, opened before the account holder married. Three decades later the will leaves everything to a spouse and two children. The 401(k) never reads the will. It pays the sibling.
That’s why a plan nobody has opened in ten years is usually due for work. The documents may still be fine. The forms behind them often aren’t, and nobody finds out until the worst moment. Keeping those forms current belongs in the same conversation as your retirement planning.
Legacy planning for Houston energy families
Several legacy planning decisions for Houston energy families get made at retirement, inside the employer’s plan, and most can’t be reversed afterward. They’re easy to treat as retirement paperwork when each one decides what reaches a spouse or a child.
The pension payment election is the clearest case. A single-life annuity pays you more each month and stops when you do, while a joint-and-survivor option pays less and keeps paying your spouse. A lump sum moves the money into an account you control, changing who inherits it and how it’s taxed. Whether you have that choice depends on your hire date, since several Houston employers closed their pension plans to newer staff while long-tenured employees kept the election. We keep retirement resources for employees of BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell, and our guide to choosing a financial advisor in Houston covers how to raise the lump sum question with any firm.
Concentrated company stock raises a different question. A large position passing to heirs brings up cost basis, the figure the IRS measures a gain against, and whether one family’s wealth should rest on one employer’s share price.
Deferred compensation carries its own distribution and beneficiary elections, many of which can’t be changed once they’re filed. See our retirement resources for ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 employees.
What your heirs may owe, and how Texas changes the math
Texas has no state estate tax and no inheritance tax, so for Houston families the transfer tax question is federal. For 2026 the federal estate and gift tax exemption is $15 million per person, and a married couple may be able to use both.
Most families land well below that, so income tax on inherited accounts usually matters more than estate tax does.
Here’s where it bites. Under the SECURE Act, most non-spouse beneficiaries have to empty an inherited pre-tax IRA or 401(k) within ten years, often taking annual withdrawals along the way. A surviving spouse has more options. If your children inherit a large pre-tax account in their fifties, those withdrawals land on their peak earning years, taxed at their rates rather than yours.
The tax valley matters here too. The stretch between your last paycheck and your first required withdrawal is usually the lowest-rate window you’ll ever have. Moving money into a Roth during it means your children inherit an account they can draw from without that bill. Our article on planning around RMDs before they begin covers that window.
Texas is also a community property state, and community property may receive a new cost basis on both halves when the first spouse dies, which can lower what heirs owe on appreciated assets. Whether it applies depends on the asset’s history, so confirm with your CPA and attorney.
Giving with purpose
Charitable giving works better when the method matches the asset. For most Houston retirees, writing a check is the least efficient way to give, and a few alternatives cost less in tax for the same generosity.
A qualified charitable distribution sends money straight from your IRA to a charity, bypassing your taxable income. You can make one from age 70½, up to $111,000 per person in 2026, and it counts toward your required distribution.
Appreciated stock is often a better gift than cash. Donating shares you’ve held at a gain lets the charity receive full value while you skip the capital gains tax a sale would trigger.
A donor-advised fund lets you contribute now and take the deduction this year, then decide which charities receive the money later. That helps in a year when your income spikes.
For family rather than charity, the annual gift exclusion is $19,000 in 2026, applied per recipient rather than in total. Our year-end tax planning article covers how these fit into a single year’s plan.
Working with a Houston estate planning advisor
Estate and legacy planning isn’t a one-time project. It sits inside your broader financial plan and gets revisited whenever something changes: a marriage, a death, a business sale, a move, or a change in the tax law.
Robert Gilliland and Karen Heider both work on legacy planning here, and Karen’s focus includes intergenerational wealth transfer. They’ll read your documents alongside your accounts and tell you where the two don’t match.
Our office is on Memorial Drive, and we work with families across Memorial, the Energy Corridor, Katy, and Sugar Land, along with clients elsewhere in the country by video. If you’d like someone to read your plan next to your beneficiary forms, a complimentary call is the simplest place to start.
“Confidence comes from knowing your financial plan is working for you, not against you.”
What our clients say about us
Reviews are sourced from independent third-party platforms and reflect the experiences of individual clients. Concenture Wealth Management does not control, edit, or provide compensation for reviews. Testimonials are not necessarily representative of all client experiences and do not guarantee future performance. This review was provided by a current client. There are no conflicts of interest affecting its content. Additional reviews are available on our Google Business Profile.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does an estate planning advisor do?
An estate planning advisor handles the financial side of estate planning while an attorney handles the legal side. The advisor reviews how your accounts are titled, who is named as beneficiary on each one, which assets pass to whom, and what your heirs may owe in tax. The point is making sure the accounts behind your documents do what the documents say.
Do I need an estate planning advisor if I already have an estate attorney?
They do different jobs. Your attorney drafts the will, trusts, and powers of attorney. Those documents don’t control retirement accounts or life insurance, which pass by beneficiary designation instead. An advisor reviews those forms against your documents and coordinates with your attorney and CPA. Plenty of well-drafted estate plans fail because nobody checked the forms behind them.
Does Texas have an estate or inheritance tax?
No. Texas repealed its inheritance tax in 2015, and in November 2025 voters approved a constitutional amendment barring the legislature from imposing a death, estate, or inheritance tax. Texas residents are still subject to federal estate tax, and property you own in another state can be taxed under that state’s rules.
How much can I leave my heirs before federal estate tax applies?
For 2026, the federal estate and gift tax exemption is $15 million per person. A married couple may be able to use both exemptions with the right planning. The 2025 tax law set the amount with no scheduled expiration and indexed it for inflation after 2026, though a future Congress could change it. Most families fall well below the threshold.
What happens to my IRA or 401(k) when my children inherit it?
Under the SECURE Act, most non-spouse beneficiaries have to withdraw the entire account within ten years of your death, and in many cases take annual withdrawals along the way. Those withdrawals are taxable income at your child’s rate. Inheriting during their peak earning years can make the tax substantial. A surviving spouse has more options.
Do beneficiary designations override my will?
For the accounts they’re attached to, yes. Retirement accounts, life insurance, and annuities pass by beneficiary designation, and the form on file generally controls regardless of what your will says. An old form naming a former spouse or a parent who has died is one of the more common problems we come across.
How often should I review my estate plan?
Every few years, and sooner when something changes. A marriage, a divorce, a birth, a death, a business sale, a move to another state, or a change in the tax law can all leave a plan out of date. Reviewing the beneficiary forms takes very little time, and it’s where most of the problems turn up.
What is legacy planning?
Legacy planning is the wider version of estate planning. Estate planning asks who receives what. Legacy planning asks what you want your money to do once it gets there, whether that’s supporting family, funding causes you care about, or passing along values alongside assets. The documents are the same. The conversation starts earlier and goes further.
Can you help me give to charity in a tax-smart way?
Yes. Depending on your situation that might mean qualified charitable distributions from an IRA once you’re 70½, giving appreciated stock instead of cash, or using a donor-advised fund to separate the deduction from the giving decisions. Which one fits depends on your income, your assets, and the timing, and we’ll work through it alongside your CPA.
Can you recommend an estate attorney?
Yes. We don’t draft documents, act as trustee, or provide trust services ourselves, and we’re not a law firm. If you don’t already have an estate attorney, we can connect you with one. If you already have an attorney you like, we’ll work with them so your documents and your accounts stay aligned.
Why plan your legacy with Concenture?
You can enjoy today knowing that tomorrow will:
- Plan ahead for the people who depend on you
- Give to charities and causes in a tax-aware way
- Simplify wealth transfer for smoother transitions
- Align your financial plan with the values you live by
- Create a lasting legacy that reflects what matters most to you