Providing for future generations
Do you want to provide for the financial well-being for your loved ones, special interests, and beyond? A Legacy Trust, also known as a dynastic trust, is an irrevocable trust designed to help protect your wealth, your values, and your ideals—while potentially minimizing the impact of transfer taxes—for generations to come.
As one of the oldest and largest national trust companies, we have specific experience in the complexities of Legacy Trusts and can help navigate the varying state laws as well as every stage of the trust’s life cycle, from assessment to transfer and implementation. We also have the ability to manage a diverse portfolio of trust assets, from stocks and bonds to real estate and closely held business interests. Careful planning can help enhance the value of trust-held assets over time, even as beneficiaries receive regular distributions.
Crafting your legacy trust with flexibility
Circumstances can change quickly. Here are a few examples of why you may want to ensure your trust is flexible enough to meet changing situations:
- A beneficiary becomes financially successful on his or her own and no longer needs income from the trust. If the trust language allows it, distributions may be restructured to give the remaining beneficiaries a larger share.
- One of your beneficiaries becomes disabled either through an accident or illness. Income from a regular trust may keep them from qualifying for Medicaid or Social Security. However, if the trust language and governing law allow it, assets could be moved to a special needs trust and used to pay for their supplemental needs while still preserving their eligibility for governmental benefits.
- The state where your legacy trust is prepared and administered changes its laws. You may be able to change situs of the trust to another state with more favorable laws.
- One or more of the people you named in the trust to serve as trustee, or in an administrative or advisory capacity, are no longer able or willing to serve. The trust can be changed to remove or appoint a trustee, trust advisor, investment advisor, or distribution committee member.
