Domestic Trusts

0pp - Item # Portfolio
The Single Person Basic RLT is a Sole-Grantor Revocable Living Trust designed primarily for a single person to avoid probate and to control the management/disposition of assets after death. When established and fully funded this trust will be under the complete, unhindered control of the grantor. Under normal circumstances, it will allow the trustee to distribute assets directly from the trust to the grantor's heirs, valid debtors, and/or charities immediately at death without any court intervention.

This format can also be used for a married person but only when one (or both) of two conditions apply: (i) the married grantor prefers to set up an Individual Trust with a small or modest estate; and/or (ii) the married grantor wants to benefit his/her spouse (in the event that his/her spouse survives the grantor) with the trust estate but not utilize the Qualified Terminable Interest Property (QTIP) marital deduction provisions allowed under IRC Section 2056 (see Product #2 for a definition of the QTIP provision).
This fully funded trust (as any funded trust) will generally also avoid the necessity of a conservatorship proceeding in the event of the grantor's incapacity (as well as avoiding probate of the trust estate at death). Avoiding conservatorship with a fully funding living trust is usually much preferable to using a Durable Power of Attorney to accomplish the same.

A single person's estate (including that of a grantor of a revocable trust) may transfer up to the maximum available exemption equivalent amount in the year of death to family members or others without incurring federal estate tax. There is no estate tax avoidance format in this trust – other than the decedent's exemption equivalent amount in the year of death – as there is no marital deduction available for a non-married individual. However, any immediate distributions to a qualified charity from this trust format will receive a dollar for dollar (unlimited) charitable deduction on behalf of the decedent's estate.

$1,700.00