THE 2021 ESTATE PLANNING TSUNAMI
Many trust and estates attorneys are telling their clients that they can’t schedule an estate planning appointment until October or November, fomented by the current uncertainties regarding tax policy in Washington.
Whatever you believe you know about a step up in cost basis or eventual changes in the Federal gift and estate tax exemptions, there is a sense of uncertainty about the scope and timing of likely changes. Consequently, many attorneys and their clients are taking pre-emptive measures, using trusts as the primary tool.
We anticipate another tsunami, such as the one in 2012, where many trusts will be created before year-end. With every new trust must come the decision of selecting and naming a trustee.
Family members are legendary in their inability to be objective when acting as a trustee, nor do they have the requisite knowledge, systems, inclination, or time to properly administer a trust.
At the other end of the spectrum are corporate trustees, such as trust companies and bank trust departments. They typically have high fees, high staff turnover, high minimum account sizes, and many other restrictions of what trusts and assets they will and will not accept.
T & E attorneys and their clients might want to discuss another alternative, the Professional Individual Trustee such as me, Jim Benedek for inTrust, located in South Florida. I serve exclusively as an individual trustee with low fees and no minimums, and the ability to be a great deal more flexible in terms of both account acceptance as well as discretionary distributions. As an attorney with an MBA, a Certified Financial Planner, a Chartered Life Underwriter and as an ITA Certified Independent Trustee, I promise to contribute a wealth of knowledge and experience, as well as compassion, to trust administration.
Refer to my work related activities here.
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