Individuals

Trusts

A powerful estate-planning tool — used to reduce estate tax liability and protect the property within your estate.

— Trusts

What is a trust?

Common objectives for trusts are to reduce estate tax liability and to protect property in your estate.

Think of a trust as a special place into which ordinary property from your estate goes — and, through a kind of transformation, takes on a new identity, often bestowed with advantages such as protection from certain estate taxes.

Getting Started

The 7 basic ingredients of a trust

To set up a trust, you need these seven elements in place.

Trustor — the person setting up the trust (also called the settlor or grantor).
Objective — the specific estate-planning goal (or goals) the trust is designed to achieve.
Kind of trust — the specific type chosen, with all its rules properly followed so it is legal and carries out your intentions.
Property — the assets placed into the trust, formally known as trust property.
Beneficiary — the person or institution who benefits from the trust, usually by eventually receiving trust property.
Trustee — the person in charge of the trust, who must understand the rules for the type of trust being managed.
Rules — some inherent to the type of trust, others set out in the trust agreement, and still more found in law.

Why Consider a Trust

What a trust can do

Reduce estate tax liability

A common objective — structuring assets to limit the estate tax that would otherwise apply.

Protect estate property

Property placed in trust can take on protections it would not have held in your personal estate.

Consider a trust for your estate.

Speak to an advisor about whether a trust suits your objectives.