Estate Planning And The Revocable Living Trust
A perfect example of the benefits of reviewing your estate planning documents on, at least, an occasional level, can be seen with the marital revocable living trust, also sometimes known as an “A-B” trust. Should you have such a document, and if it was prepared long ago and never updated, it is probably set up to accomplish exactly the OPPOSITE of what you want it to do.
There are many types of trusts. There are many reasons to set up a trust. With a married couple, the most common type of trust is a marital revocable living trust. Historically, the main purpose of this type of trust was to avoid the probate process at death and to maximize estate tax savings. Prior to the year 2000, all assets passing to a surviving spouse were exempt from estate taxes. However, for assets not passing to a surviving spouse, the maximum estate tax exemption for Ohio estate taxes was $25,000 and the maximum estate tax exemption for federal taxes was $600,000. It was not uncommon for those with a large estate to set up a marital revocable living trust to, in effect, double … Read More... “Estate Planning in Ohio ALERT: Is My Trust Still Appropriate?”