Video Summary

If I place my assets in a trust, are they protected from my creditors? No. If you transfer your assets into what they call a revocable trust, which is usually set up as far as your estate plans concern, saying who you want to receive your assets upon your death, your assets are not protected, and in fact your assets are not protected. If you transfer your assets to any sort of trust or maintain control over it, the creditors can still attach these assets. This is particularly troublesome if you set up a joint trust between husband and wife, and that you do have some asset protection as husband and wife under ancy by the entirety. Since creditors get a judgment against just either spouse, they can’t attach assets that are titled as husband and wife. Whereas if you set up a joint trust or have a joint trust, you transfer your tendency by the entirety property into the trust. Well, it destroys that, and the creditors then may be able to reach the half of the assets that you placed in this trust. Some folks say, well, what about an irrevocable trust? An irrevocable trust? It means that you transfer your assets to a trustee and you have no longer have any control over these assets, and the trustee has to follow the directions, follow the directions that they’re provided in the trust, but you can’t make demand upon them. If they are put in this irrevocable trust, then they are protected from creditors. So if you have any questions about this, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.

Video Summary

What is a Life Insurance Trust? A Life Insurance Trust usually means it’s an irrevocable trust when a life insurance policy is purchased by the person who’s doing their estate planning. My experience, they’ve been primarily used whenever you have a taxable estate and you wish to get a life insurance policy in order to be able to pay the estate taxes so that all the assets would pass through to the beneficiaries. The Life Insurance Trust is an irrevocable trust and that way by having the insurance policy not held in your name when you die, is not included in your estate for tax purposes. And the trustee then distributes them, uses the money pursuant to the provisions of the trust document to pay the taxes and also to pay the money out to the beneficiaries. But you have no control over the irrevocable life insurance trust after you purchase the policy. Of course, there’s an exception if you’re doing a term policy and you make the payments every month or every year. And so if you want to terminate the trust, well you quit making the term life insurance premiums and there’s nothing in the trust. There are some tax estate tax question or inclusion depending on when the life insurance policy is taken out and how much it is and what you need to do to avoid that. So if you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.

Video Summary

What cannot be held in trust? Well, I think just about everything can be held in trust, particularly all titled assets. If you’re dealing with a lender, a trust company, or a bank that serves as a trustee, or for that matter, any professional trustee or trustee, they may have some reservations about holding real estate, particularly vacant real estate in trust, having it in the trust since if there’s an environmental problem, there may be some question about whether the trustee then becomes liable for the environmental cleanup. So that’s always a question. Some of the other assets that are problematic, I don’t know that if you have cryptocurrency, they don’t title those. That’s simply numeric, and that’s all done through a wallet. So that would be another asset that I don’t know that you would be able to put in the trust. And so the other assets, which are problematic would be if you have gold, they can’t be specifically identified. And now how does the trustee do that as far as, I guess they could hold it, but would probably want to liquidate it to make it more accountable as far as that’s concerned, rather than having to safeguard it. So, there’s a few examples on items that are assets that may not be able to be held in trust, but certainly just about all titled assets can be titled in the name of the trustee for a particular trust, and of course, be governed by the provisions of the trust documents. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.

Video Summary

What are the benefits of a life insurance trust? A life insurance trust is used an irrevocable trust wherein a life insurance policy is purchased or is placed in the trust in naming the trustee as the beneficiary in directing that the money be used to pay taxes or to other beneficiaries. And the benefits of that are that if it’s an irrevocable life insurance trust, then the amount that’s in the trust is not includable in your taxable estate. The federal state tax laws have been changed now so that you have to have over $13 million before there’s any federal estate taxes. So this is usually only used for very high-end estate planning as far as that’s concerned, but it avoids the inclusion of the life insurance death benefit in the decedent’s estate and is usually used as a estate planning tool to pay estate taxes. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.