Another Nice Feature of a Living Trust
We have gotten some feedback on my previous post about revocable living trusts. One of the features of a living trust versus a will is that the trust can be set up to provide for “guardianship” of your affairs during your lifetime should you suddenly become disabled, etc.
You can create other forms of documents that may accomplish the same, but by using the trust, you may be able to make this much easier on you and your family.
The primary intent of my post was to make sure that farmers understand that simply having a revocable living trust does not save estate taxes over what a properly drawn will would. In many cases, setting up a revocable living trust makes a lot of sense, just do not expect it to generate large estate tax savings.
Generally the key to estate tax savings is the gifting of appreciating assets during your lifetime that will eliminate these assets being included in your estate. A revocable living trust does not accomplish that.
As usual, please continue to send your comments and questions to the blog. That is the best part of writing the blog.
Paul Neiffer, CPA
Paul Neiffer is a certified public accountant and business advisor specializing in income taxation, accounting services, and succession planning for farmers and agribusiness processors. Paul is a principal with CliftonLarsonAllen in Walla Walla, Washington, as well as a regular speaker at national conferences and contributor at agweb.com. Raised on a farm in central Washington, he has been immersed in the ag industry his entire life, including the last 30 years professionally. Paul and his wife purchase an 180 acre ranch in 2016 and enjoy keeping it full of animals.
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