Revocable trusts are fine when they are funded and when there is sufficient tax reasons or asset management reasons to prepare one. Revocable Trusts are great if funded to keep your estate plans private, to provide for seemless lifetime management of your assets and save taxes when you have a married couple. Next week we will look at one where the Trust is recommended.

“Sandy picked up the flier which read -Save Taxes through Revocable Trusts”. The flier went onto describe saving estate taxes and avoiding probate. The Virginia native was very excited about saving taxes and avoiding probate (though) she had no clue what that was. Sandy was widowed. She had three children. Her estate was $50,000 which she expected to deplete before she died. She lived on social security and the government pension her late husband Ralph had left her. She went to the seminar and a lawyer showed these power point presentations about the costs of probate and the estate taxes and she was a bit overwhealmed. But she made an appointment with him to go over her estate plan. She brought a financial statement with her that his paralegal had sent her and he talked to her about the savings that would be afforded by having a trust at just a mere $4,000. She figured she could do this for her kids. After the meeting she got a 3 inch thick stack of documents. They talked about businesses that she owned, S corporations that she owned, none of which seemed relevant to her. She called the office and talked to the paralegal who told her that this was boilerplate and if it didn’t apply don’t worry about it. An appointment was made and she went ahead to sign the documents.