Estate Planning for Your Life Insurance Policies
You probably know that the death proceeds of your life insurance policies are generally not considered taxable income to your beneficiaries. However, if at the time of your death, you have made your estate the beneficiary or retain incidents of ownership in a policy (such as the right to any cash values, the naming of beneficiaries, and the right to take out policy loans), the proceeds of the policy will generally be included in your estate for federal estate tax purposes.

Consequently, if your personal life insurance policies will substantially increase the value of your assets, you may want to consider transferring the ownership of those policies to reduce your total taxable estate. In order to exclude the proceeds from your taxable estate, you must relinquish all incidents of ownership and continue to live for at least three years after any transfer.

A properly structured irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) is one mechanism that can help ensure all incidents of ownership are eliminated. Although this approach necessitates relinquishing ownership and control of the policy, the resulting gain may be worth these tradeoffs.

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Who We Are

Dougherty & Associates

We are financial planners affiliated with Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp. We specialize in serving the financial and investment planning needs of our clients as they prepare for and transition into retirement.

Dougherty & Associates' planner associates include Randy Keeton, John E. Dougherty, Jr., Ph.D, MBA, and Charlotte A. Dougherty, CFP®.

Our friendly and competent staff includes Andrew Tedesco, Director of Operations and Financial Planning, Aimee J. Zimmer, Administrative Assistant, and John E. Dougherty, III, Registered Representative and financial planner associate. Tricia Smith, Registered Representative, is our Client Services Manager. Our team is dedicated to serving the needs of our clients and their families.
Charlotte is an elected member of the Board of "The Resource Group", a premier national group of elite financial advisors affiliated with Lincoln Financial Advisors. The purpose of The Resource Group is to expand the knowledge base and skill sets of members through education, networking and strategic alliances. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the St. Luke Community Foundation. She chairs the Planned Giving Committee and serves on the Finance Committee. With more than 20 years in the financial services industry, Charlotte brings knowledge, experience, credentials and integrity to her role as team leader.

Our affiliation with the local branch office of Lincoln Financial Advisors allows us to be a small firm within a large firm. We have all the services, support and resources we need to provide the excellence in financial planning that our clients deserve.

Our financial planning department includes Tony Oomen,CFP®, the branch office Director of Financial Planning. Steve Fortin, MBA, supports the Asset Management/Invesment Planning department.

David Scott and James Mullins provide technological services to the organization. Teresa Sayre leads the increasingly important local compliance function. Our receptionist team provides a welcoming reception for all of our guests.

Using state of the art technology, we can help our clients with services such as account aggregation of assets custodied with the firm as well as those client accounts that are not custodied or managed by us. This allows us to fully analyze our client's complete financial holdings. Integrated with these "state of the art" technologies, we incorporate sophisticated modeling of the client's "financial condition" including a detailed analysis of the tax impact of employee stock options, "trial" application of advanced estate planning solutions, and tax reduction strategies that will pave the way for critical decision making.

These talented managers are joined by a staff of investment, client service and compliance specialists serving the local office.






The firm's resources at the national level are extensive and include the "National Design" team of tax, legal and estate planning attorneys* (*licensed, but not practicing). Our relationships locally with many fine legal and tax professionals enable us to work hand in hand with our client's other advisors for a truly team approach.

Wealth management solutions are virtually unlimited. Our solutions partners include with firms such as Fidelity's Institutional Brokerage Group, SEI Investments, Advest, Brinker and more. Our LincSolutions investment platform uniquely integrates sophisticated analysis of the portfolio with our financial planning tools, a cutting edge development in the financial services field.