Taxation & Estate Planning

Legacy Trusts For The EveryMan/Woman/Couple

By Michael D. Bonasera, Esq.

This NYT Article by Hillary Chura on January 5, discusses the benefits of legacy trusts for “regular people” - aka, those of us who don’t have millions of dollars:

ONCE only for the superrich, dynasty trusts now provide a way for the rest of us to leave money to loved ones, preserve wealth for future generations and even control how an inheritance is used once donors die.

There are a record nine million households in the United States worth $1 million or more, excluding their primary residences, according to the Spectrem Group, a consulting firm specializing in the affluent and retirement markets. Therefore many more parents, kindly uncles and loving grandparents now have the wherewithal to use their lifetime of savings to enrich their children?s lives without destroying them.

?The philosophy is that you leave them with enough to do something but not enough to do nothing,? said Richard A. Lehrman, a Miami Beach lawyer, underscoring a common sentiment among wealth managers.

But, while one’s assets are important to consider when deciding how complex your estate plan should be, these trusts also allow one to “parent from the grave” by placing conditions, both positive and negative, on a beneficiary’s receipt of their share of the trust.

Full post as published by The Ohio Trust & Estate Blog on January 19, 2008 (boomark / email).