When you begin your estate plan, you are often planning for you, your spouse, and your children.  You may also want to consider including your grandchildren or prospective grandchildren as part of your estate plan.  You can plan so that several generations benefit from your success and reduce the tax burdens that may be passed on to your children and grandchildren with their inheritance.

Federal law imposes a Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax (GSTT) at the top estate tax rate on gifts, either outright or in trust, that benefit a person more than one generation below you, such as a grandchild or an unrelated person more than 37.5 years your junior.  By creating a Triple Generation Tax Savings Trust, you can use your GSTT exemption, currently equal to the estate tax exemption ($5 million individually/$10 million including a spouse in 2011 and 2012) and reduce the future taxes that your beneficiaries may incur.

We will help you design a Triple Generation Tax Savings Trust that effectively allows your children access to your assets but “skips” your children as beneficiaries of a portion of your estate for tax purposes only.   Such assets will not be included in your children's or grandchildren’s taxable estates and you can control what access they have to the trust funds.

In addition to multi-generational planning Davis Schilken, PC provides advanced estate planning expertise in the following areas:

• Pet Trusts
• Charitable Planning
• Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts
• Retirement Planning
• Intentionally Defective Irrevocable Trusts
• Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts
• Family Limited Partnerships
• Guardianship / Conservatorship 

 For information on how to get started on your estate plan visit our Estate Planning Process page.