Frequently asked questions

Estate planning is arranging, in legally valid documents, who manages your affairs if you're incapacitated and who receives your property when you die. A core plan is typically a will, a durable power of attorney, an advance healthcare directive with a HIPAA authorization, and — for many families — a revocable living trust.

Yes. An estate plan decides who raises your children, who can talk to your doctors, and who manages your bank account if you're in the hospital — none of which depends on wealth. Without documents, state intestacy law and court-appointed decision-makers fill the gaps.

Your state's intestacy statute distributes your probate property along a fixed family hierarchy — typically spouse and children first — and a court appoints an administrator and, if needed, a guardian for minor children. Unmarried partners, stepchildren, and charities receive nothing under intestacy.

If you use a revocable living trust, you still need a 'pour-over' will to catch assets left outside the trust and to nominate guardians for minor children. If you don't use a trust, the will is the main document. A trust adds probate avoidance, privacy, and incapacity management for the assets titled to it.

Review after major life events — marriage, divorce, a birth or death, a move to another state, a significant change in assets — and at least every three to five years. Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance deserve the same review, because they override the will.

The agent under your power of attorney acts for you while you're alive; that authority ends at your death. The executor named in your will takes over after death to administer the estate. They can be the same person, but the roles and time windows are distinct.

Only when you can no longer make or communicate medical decisions yourself, as determined under state law (typically by physician certification). While you have capacity, you make your own decisions, and you can amend or revoke the directive at any time.

The directive says who decides; the HIPAA authorization says who may receive your medical information. Without a signed authorization under 45 CFR § 164.508, a cautious provider may refuse to share records even with your healthcare agent, delaying informed decisions.

A document is valid if it's executed the way your state's statute requires — for a will, that generally means signed by you and attested by two witnesses; powers of attorney and directives have their own signing and notarization rules. Elephant's templates are state-specific and reviewed by a bar-licensed attorney in each covered state, and the app walks you through the exact execution steps.

Only if your taxable estate exceeds the federal exemption — $15 million per person ($30 million per married couple with portability) for 2026, indexed for inflation afterward. Amounts above it are taxed at up to 40%. Separately, 12 states and DC levy their own estate taxes and 5 states levy inheritance taxes, often with much lower thresholds.

In 2026, $19,000 per recipient per year ($38,000 for married couples who split gifts) with no reporting and no use of your lifetime exemption. Direct payments of tuition to a school or medical bills to a provider are unlimited on top of that. Larger gifts require a gift tax return but usually just reduce your $15 million lifetime exemption rather than triggering tax.

No. A revocable trust is ignored for income tax (you report its income on your own return), and its assets are included in your gross estate for estate tax. Its benefits are probate avoidance, privacy, and incapacity management — not tax savings.

Delaware is standard when you're raising institutional venture capital — investors and law firms have template stacks there. Solo founders operating from one state often incorporate at home to avoid foreign qualification, a second registered agent, and duplicate annual filings. Delaware franchise tax for corporations uses methods tied to authorized shares (8 Del. C. § 214), which confuses many founders; your home state may have simpler ongoing compliance. See our guide: https://elephant.estate/resources/home-state-vs-delaware-incorporation

If you form a corporation or LLC in one state but operate from another, the operating state usually requires you to register as a foreign entity (Certificate of Authority). That means extra fees, a registered agent in that state, and annual reports in both places — a common reason bootstrap founders form in their home state instead of Delaware.

No. Elephant is a software platform, not a law firm, and doesn't provide legal, tax, or investment advice. Documents are generated from templates reviewed by a bar-licensed attorney in each covered state, and complex situations should be reviewed with your own counsel.

Documents are envelope-encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, transmitted over TLS 1.3, and every sensitive action writes an append-only audit record. Multi-factor authentication is mandatory for principal accounts. See the Security page for the full architecture.

Access is scoped per member. You can invite a spouse as a co-principal, give adult children or beneficiaries read-only views, and grant professionals like attorneys or CPAs access to specific documents only. Executors get break-glass access that activates under defined conditions and is fully audited.

Tembo is Elephant's AI assistant — named for the Swahili word for elephant. Tembo helps you organize your household, explains estate concepts in plain English, and remembers details you share so you don't have to re-explain them. Tembo educates and organizes; it does not give legal advice, and complex questions can be escalated to a human specialist.

Tembo's memory is household-scoped and stored in Elephant's systems — not in a third-party chatbot. You can review, correct, forget, or pause what Tembo remembers under Settings → Tembo memory. Memory is used to personalize help inside your household; it is not used to train public models.