Originally Posted by
MFan97
Gotcha, thanks. I'd never heard of a living will, at least not under its proper name, seems like a necessity.
It was suggested to me that a conventional will is only so effective, and a trust is a much better thing to have pertaining to money, but that they're much more expensive. Not surprised a trust isn't covered for free if that's indeed the case, wonder if they'd give a good rate on one?
Under the current rules, your heirs will be taxed (estate tax) at anything over $5.49M and that tax rate is 40%. While it might seem unlikely that you'll ever achieve that, with our current rates, retirements and length of service; one could easily bump up and over the $5.49 million especially if parents leave behind a sizeable estate.
The Will describes how your assets and belongings are to be handled and distributed after your death. A trust only details who is in charge of your trust upon your death (the Trustee). All assets are owned by the trust. The Trustee manages the assets. So in effect, one is able to bypass the estate tax. Because there are many types of trusts and people have different needs, you need to see a professional who is very good at the type of trust you need. I really think you get what you pay for in this deal.
Trump wants to introduce legislation removing the estate tax. His view is that the money was taxed at one point and doesn't need to be taxed again and that its onerous for a lot of people. Where I live, if a parent who owns a farm and dies with only a will, the value of the land, water and minerals can easily exceed $5.5M and the family can't pay the tax and loses the family farm. That's the big topic for today's farmers.
Our free service handles the will easily but for a trust, you need a professional to walk you thru it. If you know exactly what you want/need, you can also do it yourself but you need to do your homework.