Noozhawk’s Newest Columnist Puts Stock in Estate Planning
Though a trial lawyer by trade, Mark Cornwall is using his passion for writing to help others think ahead.
Here’s a little-known fact about George Washington: In addition to being a founding father, a legendary military leader and the first president of the United States, he also emancipated his slaves posthumously in his will, which he penned himself.
This, retired Santa Barbara attorney Mark Cornwall says in the new edition of his book on prudent estate planning, is leading by example.
In The Hero’s Way for Baby Boomers: The Estate Plan Before and After 2010 — whose cover is adorned with Washington’s stately dollar-bill profile — Cornwall argues that aging boomers need to start thinking about how they, too, can lead by example in their wills, becoming the George Washingtons of their own families.
Cornwall has spent the past few years becoming an expert on the intricacies of estate planning and, starting today, will begin sharing what he has learned in a monthly column for Noozhawk. Click here to read the first in the series.
Though a trial lawyer by trade, Cornwall has always possessed a passion for writing, and once upon a time planned on living his life as an author. Fate intervened, and Cornwall — whose life adventures have included playing college football, roaming around South America for a year as a broke aspiring writer, and working as a logger and later successful real-estate entrepreneur in Alaska — wound up on another path for decades. After quitting his attorney job in 2004 because of burnout, he set his sights back on writing, and in 2006 put out the first edition of his book.
In the latest edition, released this year, Cornwall focuses on the impending re-emergence of a higher estate tax, referred to pejoratively by some as the “death tax.”
In 2001, President Bush slashed the estate tax, setting in motion a schedule in which the tax was to dwindle every year until 2010, at which point it would disappear altogether. But 2010 is also the year in which the tax will sunset, meaning that in 2011 the tax, as written, will jump back to 2001 levels.
In 2001, people could leave $675,000 to their heirs, tax-free, while the rest of their estate was taxed at a rate of 55 percent. In 2011, the exemption is scheduled to rise to $1 million, but the tax is scheduled to jump to that 55 percent level. (Cornwall believes that Congress most likely will take action to avoid allowing the tax to drop to zero in 2010.)
In any case, the estate tax is likely to soon increase, and Cornwall has some words of advice for families that could be affected by it: “You better start getting clever.”
Much of the book is dedicated to helping families learn ways to avoid the tax.
“The idea here is to pass your fortune on, whether it’s small or large, and do it without paying any taxes on the transfer,” he said.
A youthful 58, Cornwall is an open book about his own trials and triumphs. His enthusiastic articulations on the craft of writing, the subject matter of his books and his background call to mind the demeanor of the charismatic TV personality Huell Howser.
Cornwall earned much of his money as a personal injury trial attorney, a career he held for 22 years.
“Mentally, it got to the point to where I didn’t even want to answer the phone anymore, and listen to one more person’s story about how they hurt their neck, and they want about $50,000 for it,” he said.
Cornwall grew up in a middle-class home in Bakersfield, the son of two teachers. Although he became an attorney, law wasn’t his first love. It was writing.
In fact, Cornwall had every intention of setting out as a “starving artist,” but things don’t always work out as planned. In 1969, he lost a full-ride scholarship playing football at Boise State University after he blew out a knee. Not long after, following a none-too-glamorous stint in which he took a job stacking haystacks at a ranch, he spent a year in South America writing a philosophical romance and adventure book.
Cornwall’s plan was to move to New York City with the goal of shopping the book around to publishers. But the plan was interrupted by a call from his brother, who, like many able-bodied young men at the time, was making a killing in Alaska helping install a major pipeline for oil. He urged Cornwall to get in on the spoils, and even purchased a plane ticket for him.
Cornwall showed up in Alaska, where he had worked for a few months as a logger, hoping to land a job on the pipeline. It never panned out, and he wound up settling for another logging job.
At the time, largely because of the pipeline, Anchorage was fast becoming a boomtown, and Cornwall had the foresight to purchase cheap land with the money he earned logging.
To this day, Cornwall seems amazed by the strange phenomenon of a boomtown. “You buy this piece of property for 25 grand, and in three months, it’s worth 50 grand, and in three more months, now it’s worth $250,000,” he said. “I did that for three years.”
Ironically, his failure to find a job on the pipeline led to a path that was far more lucrative.
The money Cornwall earned in Alaska allowed him to pay for law school. He moved to Santa Barbara, where his parents were born and raised, but where he had never lived. Eventually, his law career blossomed.
Cornwall said he became interested in estate planning around 2000, when he started talking with an attorney about his plans, and found himself flummoxed. “I said to myself, ‘What the hell is he talking about?’”
Eventually, through his own study, he became proficient.
Meanwhile, Cornwall never lost his interest in writing.
One day, in 2006, while watching a segment on “Good Morning America” on baby-boomers, Cornwall had an epiphany: He could write a book bringing his newly acquired knowledge of estate planning to the public.
And in 2006, the first edition of the book was born, titled Everything a Baby Boomer Should Know: An Insider’s Guide To Estate Planning.
“This is something I know about, you know?” he said. “First rule of writing: Write about something you know about. Well, I know the law, I can decipher the law. This is what I’m trained to do.”
Write to .
» wrote on 11/26/08 @ 07:28 AM
Need to tighten up the writing, dear scribe. E.g., “he set his sites back on writing”? Anything having to do with vision must always be “sight,” not the locative “site.” ‘Spell check’ never thinks critically…
Also, “stacking haystacks”? Surely something better than that should have occurred.
» wrote on 11/26/08 @ 10:32 AM
I used to know a guy named Mark Cornwall. Oh never mind. Geane Lohse
PS
did you go to BHS, class of 68?
» wrote on 11/26/08 @ 01:00 PM
Congratulations! Keep on truckin’.
» wrote on 11/26/08 @ 04:26 PM
Read your first book; full of great information. Looking forward to reading the second one.
» wrote on 11/26/08 @ 07:17 PM
If this book is as informative as the first, we will all be grateful to Mark Cornwall when we die.
» wrote on 11/27/08 @ 10:47 AM
Thank you Rob Kuznia for writing a great article about a very interesting book, and for portraying my father as the wonderful and interesting person he is. What I like most about the book is how it deals with what’s going on right now. The fact of the matter is that the estate tax is going to increase, and families need to figure out clever ways to avoid the tax. Anyone interested in keeping everything they have worked so hard for in life safe, need to buy this book. Love you Dad Aurora