Special Estate Preservation Documents
• Alternate State B Trust if you live in or own property in the 22 states (and counting), that have an estate tax exemption lower than the Federal Estate Tax Exemption.
• Asset Management Irrevocable Trust if you wish to leave assets for the use and benefit of a beneficiary with money management problems.
• Beneficiary Irrevocable Trust if you want to enjoy peace of mind, knowing that the assets you leave to your (responsible) children will be protected against the claims of creditors, divorcing spouses and future estate taxes while your children will have complete control over the assets you have left to them.
• Catastrophic Illness Revocable or Irrevocable Trusts if you want to protect your estate from the cost of an illness or disability that would otherwise deplete your estate’s assets.
• Charitable Remainder Trust if you have highly appreciated assets and you want to avoid otherwise payable estate taxes and reduce capital gain and income taxes. This trust permits you to use the trust assets during your lifetime while assuring that on your death the trust assets will be transferred to your designated charities.
• Children’s Trusts if you would like a regular or special needs children’s trust designed to hold and distribute allocations to your children or grandchildren.
• Generation Skipping Trusts if you wish to reduce or altogether eliminate the impact of taxes that might otherwise be assessed on the assets that you pass directly to your grandchildren.
• Insurance Preservation Trusts if you wish to exclude the proceeds of your life insurance from your taxable estate and thus avoid the consumption of life insurance proceeds by estate taxes; provide a relatively low cost way for you to pay otherwise unavoidable estate taxes; or earmark and distribute assets over a period of time to your surviving spouse and children.
• IRA and Qualified Plan Trusts if you desire to protect your IRA or qualified plan assets from being unnecessarily reduced by estate taxes. Your surviving spouse will be able to allocate the assets from your IRA or qualified plan following your death to a marital trust and/or to a credit shelter trust. Flexible allocation and subsequent tax savings, in the absence of such a trust, would simply not be possible.
• Qualified Personal Residence Trusts if you have a large estate and you are looking for a way to reduce or eliminate otherwise payable estate taxes. If you have a home, or a second home, that has a significant value, that home can be gifted at a leveraged (reduced) value to your children under an agreement permitting you to continue to live in the home for a period of years.
• Separate Property Agreements if you wish to identify any separate property belonging to you or to your spouse and thus prevent the unintentional disinheriting or rightful heirs, or protect your separate property from the claims of divorcing spouses.
• Community Property Agreements if you are a married couple living in a community property state, this Agreement allows you to divide your assets by value, rather than by itemizations, on the death of the first spouse. This Agreement also allows you, as a married couple, to split ownership of qualified plans and take maximum advantage of the federal estate tax exclusion on the death of the first spouse.
• Buy/Sell Agreement simply put, a buy-sell agreement is a binding contract between co-owners that controls when an owner can sell his interest, who can buy an owner’s interest and what price will be paid for that interest.