By Dr. Tamara Patzer
In brief: Taxes and legal structure get the attention, but families more often lose wealth through disputes over who decides. A New Orleans tax attorney explains how governance, meaning agreed rules for decisions, belongs in a family office plan, using his book’s guidance and current federal data on generational wealth transfers.
Most planning conversations are about money: how to hold it, how to shelter it, how to pass it on. The question that breaks more families is different. Who decides? When the founder steps back, becomes ill, or dies, someone must choose whether to sell, whom to hire, and how much to distribute. If the family has never agreed on a process, the choice becomes a fight. Todd M. Villarrubia, a New Orleans attorney who focuses on tax and estate planning, treats governance as a core part of his book Entrepreneurial B.E.A.S.T. Mode™. This article explains why.
How Much Wealth Is About To Change Hands?
A great deal. Cerulli Associates expects $124 trillion to move between generations in the United States through 2048, with $105 trillion going to heirs and $18 trillion to charity. Much of it sits in businesses, real estate and investments whose owners have never written down how decisions will be made.
At the household level, the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, released October 9, 2026, shows a 2025 median family net worth of $215,900 and a mean of $1.24 million. Families across that range face versions of the same question, scaled to what they own.
What Does Governance Mean For A Family?
Simply, an agreed way of making decisions. Who sits at the table? How are votes counted? What happens when two people disagree? When can the family sell the company? How are new members brought in, and how are old ones bought out? None of this needs to be elaborate, but all of it needs to be written.
The book states the stakes bluntly: “Without proper preparations and governance, wealth can easily be destroyed through family conflict or tax mishaps.” Note that the sentence places conflict first. In the author’s experience, discord among heirs does more harm to families than most tax bills.
Why Do Documents Not Settle It?
Because documents allocate property and leave out purpose. A will can say who gets the shares. It cannot say how the new owners should decide whether to sell. The book is blunt about it: “But estate documents don’t prevent family disputes; they merely provide something to fight over.”
Governance fills the gap. A family charter, an operating agreement with clear voting provisions, or a family council gives the heirs a process before they need one. It does not remove disagreement. It gives disagreement somewhere to go.
What Does A Family Need To Agree On?
Five topics cover most of the ground.
- Values: what the family wants its wealth to stand for.
- Roles: who works in the business, who owns it, and who only inherits.
- Decisions: which choices are made by management, which by owners, and which by the whole family.
- Exits: how a family member can leave and what they receive.
- Communication: how often the family meets and what information it shares.
Villarrubia places values first for a reason. He writes, “Protect the wealth and the wisdom, because if you don’t pass on the wisdom, the wealth won’t last.” Rules without shared purpose tend to be obeyed on paper and ignored in practice.
Where Does The Family Office Fit?
It provides the machinery. A family office can host the family council, keep the records, prepare information for meetings, and administer the agreed rules. The author describes its purpose as helping the family stay together as well as stay solvent: it supports “growth while maintaining family unity.” That ambition is more modest than it sounds. It means that someone is responsible for making governance happen on a schedule.
A smaller family can do much of this without an office. An annual meeting, a short charter, and a lead adviser can cover the basics. The principle is that governance is a practice and not a document.
How Do The Tax Pieces Connect?
They shape the choices. The IRS lists $15,000,000 per person as the 2026 federal basic exclusion amount3. A family above or near that figure must consider how an estate tax bill would be paid, and who decides which assets to sell. That is a governance question as much as a tax one. If the heirs have no process, the choice may be made in a crisis, with a deadline and a tax authority waiting.
Families below the exclusion face other questions: who inherits the company, who runs it, and how the others are treated. Those need answers too, and the answers are rarely in the tax code.
How Should A Family Start?
With a conversation, not a document. Pick a time when no crisis is in view. Invite the people who will be affected, including the next generation if they are old enough. Ask each to say what they hope the family’s wealth will do, and what they fear. Write down what you hear.
From there, an attorney can help turn the answers into agreements. The book argues that the question of continuity is not about copying the founder. It is about “ensuring continuity of values in a changing world.” A family that has had that conversation is better placed to make decisions on the day they are needed.
What Goes Wrong?
Three things recur. First, the founder assumes the family agrees and never checks. Second, the plan names a successor without asking the person. Third, the rules are drawn up in a hurry after a death, when feelings are raw. All three are avoidable by starting earlier.
What Is The Smallest Useful Governance Step?
Write down who decides what, in half a page. Name the person who runs the company day to day, the people who vote on a sale, and the person who breaks a tie. Share it with the advisers and put it with the other key documents. It will not settle every future dispute, but it gives the family a starting point that nobody has to invent in the middle of a loss.
Common Questions
Is A Family Charter Legally Binding?
Often not by itself. An attorney can say which parts should be put in binding agreements.
What If Family Members Disagree About The Rules?
That is the reason to draw them up. Better to disagree now than after a loss.
Can Governance Be Added Later?
Yes, though it is easier before a crisis.
Sources
- NAPA-Net, Wealth Transfers Expected to Hit $124 Trillion Through 2048 (reporting Cerulli)
- Federal Reserve Board, press release on the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances
- Internal Revenue Service, What’s New: Estate and Gift Tax
About the author. Dr. Tamara Patzer is a publisher and former newspaper editor. She was on the staff of The Charlotte Sun when it was named a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for its Hurricane Charley coverage.
About the source. Todd M. Villarrubia is an attorney with an LL.M. in Taxation and a Juris Doctorate. He is an Accredited Estate Planner, a Board Certified Expert in Estate Planning and Administration, and a Fiduciary Investment Advisor Representative. He is the author of Entrepreneurial B.E.A.S.T. Mode™. Wealth Planning Law Group, 101 W. Robert E. Lee Blvd., Ste 404, New Orleans, LA 70124. Phone: 504-982-8207; email: todd@lawealthplan.com; website: Wealth Planning Law Group
Disclaimer: Attorney advertising. Sponsored feature written on behalf of Todd M. Villarrubia. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Results vary.
