Coming into Money:
Preparing Your Children for an Inheritance

I N T R O D U C T I O N

ON THE FIRST TWO PAGES of a spring 2001 New Yorker, a young teenage girl — there's a big picture of her — asks, "Daddy, can I have a trust fund?"

Is this ad far-fetched? If you think so, consider these stories — all of them true. A fifteen-year-old inherits $6 million after her father, an entrepreneur, dies suddenly of a heart attack. A fifteen-year-old gets a gold Rolex watch from his father as a junior high school graduation present, and his father tells him that he will receive half a million dollars at eighteen. Another fifteen-year-old gets many millions, without any strings, from his parents who are themselves heirs.

Coming into money at fifteen is less common than coming into money at eighteen or twenty-one, or before thirty. However, teenage millionaires are much more plentiful than most people might imagine. And whether a young person inherits wealth at fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one or twenty-five is less significant than this astonishing phenomenon: more Americans and Canadians than ever before are considered "high net worth individuals," with assets of over $1 million. In May 2001, one estimate put the number of high net worth individuals in North America at 2.54 million. Many among these rich and super-rich are parents who have already made arrangements to leave large amounts of money to their children. Many more will likely follow suit.

What do you think about this remarkable trend?

If you are wealthy enough to make your children wealthy, and if your children are in their teens or younger, you have probably been wondering whether and when to share your wealth with them. Coming into Money: Preparing Your Children for an Inheritance addresses your questions.