A number of time-honoured cultural reasons have made the estate planning topic taboo to many clients of Asian background, Townsends Business & Corporate Lawyers solicitor Jonathan See said in a blog.
However, he noted that discussions around estate planning can be focused on not the death of the client, but rather the life of the surviving family.
While it may be a difficult conversation to have, an Asian client reluctant to address estate planning can be advised of the following benefits, including the ability to plan their own needs, being able to dispose of their wealth in any way they wish, the prevention of filial disputes, the protection of family wealth and tax minimisation.
An estate planning example involving Chinese migrants to Australia
To demonstrate his point, Mr See used the example of Chang and his wife Ming who migrated from China to Australia in 1975. Over many years, they began with a couple of odd jobs before opening their own Asian grocery store and growing that business.
Chang and Ming have three children — Robert, Ashley and Terry — all born in Australia and are now adults and happily married with children. Robert and Ashley help their father run the business as full-time employees while Terry works as a solicitor in a law firm.
Chang is now 70 years of age and, despite the substantial amount of wealth, he does not have a will in place and has not set up any plan as to who will make decisions for him should he lose his mental capacity.
Further, Chang is currently happy with his current disposition and does not see any need to plan these things as he is focused on growing his business more.
Using this example, Mr See said there are two reasons for his reluctance towards estate planning.
“First is that death is a taboo, a topic nobody talks about in Chinese culture. Discussing or even thinking about it disturbs the inner harmony,” he said.
“Second is the lack of understanding of its benefits. Before the 1990s, everything the Chinese had was state-owned; hence, they did not need to plan because the state would have provided for their children.”
Mr See said the reticence to discuss death may also be derived from the teachings of Confucius.
“Confucius’ guiding belief was that of the philosophy Tien Ming (or the influences of fate and mission). Tien Ming states that all things are under the control of the regulatory mechanism of heaven,” Mr See said.
“This includes life and death, wealth and poverty, health and illness. Confucius believed that understanding Tien Ming was his life’s mission. He encouraged people to accept whatever happened to them, including death.
“Confucius affirmed that without knowledge of how to live, a person cannot know about death and dying. However, Confucius avoided discussions of death. He did not discuss death and the unknown future or afterlife in detail.
“He concluded that these issues were complicated and abstract, and that it was better to spend time solving the problems of the present life than to look into the unknown world of death and afterlife.”
