I hope that this post is not "too much in the weeds".
My and my wife's combined assets are definitely far below the expected 2026 estate tax exemption limit of $5 million. I just want to make sure that my heirs do all the right paperwork when we die.
We have a joint revocable trust. I do not have a good relationship with the lawyer who created the trust--he doesn't want to explain anything.
When the first of us dies, one of the following should happen, according to our trust terms:
. A Marital Trust and a Bypass Trust should be created
. A Survivor's Trust should be created
Since our assets are below the expected limit, the reasonable thing to do is creating the Survivor's Trust--it is a whole lot simpler.
There is a "test" in the trust document to decide which of the above two should be done. The test compares our combined total assets to the limit for a single person (namely $5 million). Even by this test, the decision should be to create the Survivor's Trust,
What surprises me is testing our combined total assets to the limit instead of testing the assets of the person who passed away--for the sake of simplicity, let's assume that it is 50% of the combined total assets.
This has made me lose confidence in the trust itself.
I hope that I am making sense. If not, please ask questions and I will try to explain better.
Thanks.
My and my wife's combined assets are definitely far below the expected 2026 estate tax exemption limit of $5 million. I just want to make sure that my heirs do all the right paperwork when we die.
We have a joint revocable trust. I do not have a good relationship with the lawyer who created the trust--he doesn't want to explain anything.
When the first of us dies, one of the following should happen, according to our trust terms:
. A Marital Trust and a Bypass Trust should be created
. A Survivor's Trust should be created
Since our assets are below the expected limit, the reasonable thing to do is creating the Survivor's Trust--it is a whole lot simpler.
There is a "test" in the trust document to decide which of the above two should be done. The test compares our combined total assets to the limit for a single person (namely $5 million). Even by this test, the decision should be to create the Survivor's Trust,
What surprises me is testing our combined total assets to the limit instead of testing the assets of the person who passed away--for the sake of simplicity, let's assume that it is 50% of the combined total assets.
This has made me lose confidence in the trust itself.
I hope that I am making sense. If not, please ask questions and I will try to explain better.
Thanks.
Statistics: Posted by veeceeone — Tue Aug 13, 2024 8:49 am — Replies 6 — Views 392