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Awritten statement of a person’s wishes regarding medical treatment, often including a living will, made to ensure those wishes are carried out should the person be unable to communicate them to a doctor
A personal trust is a trust that an individual creates, formally naming themselves as the beneficiary. Personal trusts are separate legal entities that have the authority to buy, sell, hold, and manage property.
A Durable Power of Attorney is one of the most important documents anyone can have in place in the event they are unable to care for themselves. A Durable Power of Attorney acts as a permission slip, giving authority to a third party to do things on behalf of someone else.
A Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust is a Planned Giving vehicle that entails a donor placing a major gift of cash or property into a trust. The trust then pays a fixed amount of income each year to the donor or the donor’s specified beneficiary.
An irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) is created to own and control a term or permanent life insurance policy or policies while the insured is alive, as well as to manage and distribute the proceeds that are paid out upon the insured’s death.
A Joint Living Trust is simply a Living Trust with another person. For example, spouses may decide to create one Joint Living Trust instead of two separate Living Trusts. It offers the simplicity of just one document, and other advantages like increased privacy, reduced probate costs.
A credit shelter trust (CST) is a trust created after the death of the first spouse in a married couple. Assets placed in the trust are generally held apart from the estate of the surviving spouse, so they may pass tax-free to the remaining beneficiaries at the death of the surviving spouse.
A generation-skipping trust (GST) is a type of legally binding trust agreement in which the contributed assets are passed down to the grantor’s grandchildren, thus “skipping” the next generation, the grantor’s children. By passing over the grantor’s children, the assets avoid the estate taxes—taxes on an individual’s property upon his or her death—that would apply if the children directly inherited them.
A charitable trust is an irrevocable trust established for charitable purposes and, in some jurisdictions, a more specific term than “charitable organization”. A charitable trust enjoys a varying degree of tax benefits in most countries. It also generates good will. Some important terminology in charitable trusts is the term “corpus” (Latin for “body”), which refers to the assets with which the trust is funded
A Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT) is a specific type of irrevocable trust that allows its creator to remove a personal home from his or her estate for the purpose of reducing the amount of gift tax that is incurred when transferring assets to a beneficiary.
A gift in trust is a special legal and fiduciary arrangement that allows for an indirect bequest of assets to a beneficiary. The purpose of a gift in trust is to avoid the tax on gifts that exceed the annual gift tax exclusion limit. This type of trust is commonly used to transfer wealth to the next generation.
QTIP trust is a type of trust and an estate planning tool used in the United States. “QTIP” is short for “Qualified Terminable Interest Property.” A QTIP trust is often used in order to take advantage of the marital deduction and still control the ultimate distribution of the assets at the death of the surviving spouse.
Elder law is an expansion of the traditional trust and estates practice, it’s an area that specializes on issues that affect the aging population. The purpose of elder law planning is to prepare the elderly person for financial freedom and autonomy through proper financial planning and long-term care options.