FAQ Friday: Whiteboards
On Friday, February 14th, Attorney Paula M. Mattson-Sarli explains how we often set up revocable living trusts using an whiteboard diagram.
We use the whiteboard to provide a visual for our clients. We think of the trust as a box and what we put in our box. This usually includes your home, brokerage accounts etc.
We may have everything go to the survivor’s trust. That leaves 100% going to your spouse and they can take everything out of the trust, change the terms etc.
Sometimes we do a family trust, which preserves the deceased spouse’s exemption that he or she didn’t use so we can shelter from tax, a certain amount of money.
Outside the trust there could be an IRA and traditionally those go directly to the spouse versus the trust. We would name the children as contingent beneficiaries.
If there is a business, we like to assign it to the trust. Sometimes with life insurance, we consider the need to have liquidity and might start with it going to spouse as primary and trust as contingent.
The whiteboard serves as our roadmap and what happens in each stage.
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