Smart Women Protect Their Assets: Essential Information for Every Woman About Wills, Trusts, and More

Sharing the Wealth

In Chapter 6 (“What’s a Will? What’s a Trust? How Do You Use Them to Put Your Plan in Place?”), we talked about the significant tax savings you get when you leave some or all of your assets in Trust for your husband. It’s the simplest way to use your applicable exclusion from federal estate tax ($2,000,000 in 2008 and $3,500,000 in 2009) and still take care of your groom. You can also provide that these funds pass directly to your children, with your other assets passing to your husband. The key, though, is that you must have enough assets in your name alone to do this. As you learned in Chapter 2 (“What Exactly Does Your Estate Include?”), joint assets and assets with a beneficiary designation pass to the surviving ...