Estate Planning Attorney: Taxes and Trusts

If you're taking time to plan your estate, an estate planning attorney can provide you with sound legal and financial support. From limiting tax liability to creating trusts, an estate planning attorney can help you develop a strategy to leave behind a lasting legacy.

Here are just some of the services commonly provided by an estate planning attorney.

Tax Mitigation

Depending on how you build your estate, your assets might be taxed several times over. From when you earn your money to when your estate is dispersed, you don't want state and federal governments siphoning away your estate. Here are things you can do to help. 

  • Tax Shelters: Estate planning attorneys can help you move your assets into a variety of tax shelters. For instance, the federal government limits how much money you can gift to people from your estate without triggering additional taxation. Your estate planning attorney can help you create a will that stays below these limits, while also moving the remainder of the liquid assets in your estate to a variety of tax shelters.
  • Life Insurance: Life insurance products are designed to help you provide for beneficiaries in the event that you are no longer around or are unable to work. An estate planning attorney can help you choose from a variety of life insurance products. For instance, you might choose to invest some of your estate in a life insurance policy that provides living benefits. A policy with living benefits allocates money to beneficiaries when you suffer a major life event like a stroke, heart attack, or a cancer diagnosis. In addition to providing for your loved ones when can no longer provide for yourself, the benefits will not trigger state or federal taxes.

Building Trust

Working with an estate planning attorney can allow you to build a trust that provides a variety of benefits to causes and people you love. Here are some of your trust options. 

  • Living Trusts: These trusts are designed to create a philanthropic legacy. You can create a living trust to establish a scholarship or provide funds for family members as they hit certain milestones in life. Your estate planning attorney can help you build living trusts that have clear legal instructions for how the funds are distributed.
  • Tax Shelter Trusts: your estate planning attorney can also help you establish a tax shelter trust (TST). These types of trusts are designed to protect assets like property, businesses, and investment portfolios from tax liability.

To learn more, visit an estate planning attorney like those at Abom & Kutulakis LLP.


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