Jennifer Campbell was recently featured in MarketWatch, answering a reader question in ‘The Moneyist’ column about what degree of estate planning is needed at various levels of wealth and how to approach planning in the wake of a terminal diagnosis.
Jennifer suggests the letter writer consider a bypass trust, an estate planning vehicle that can help high-net-worth families avoid estate and probate taxes. "The terms of the bypass trust can vary considerably," Jennifer tells MarketWatch. "However, most commonly, the bypass trust is structured so that it can qualify as a marital deduction trust, which allows the survivor to claim the decedent's estate and gift exemption as the survivor's own and allows the assets in the bypass trust to receive a new basis at the survivor's death."
Jennifer explains trusts can be flexible and can be outlined to include distributions to pay for post-graduate education, weddings, and other life milestones. "These trusts can be held for life or can be directed to pay out at various ages [and] the flexibility to plan for the generation-skipping transfer tax, currently equal to the estate and gift tax exemption."
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