The Ultimate Power Tool for Estate Planning
Video Transcribed: Hello, my name is attorney Jason Lile and I am the Oklahoma Will and Trust Attorney for this area in northeastern Oklahoma. I wanted to talk to you today about an instrument that I drop for a lot of my clients who have quite a bit of experience with called a living revocable trust.
Now why would you want a living revocable trust? Well if you watched my previous videos you know that I refer to a living revocable trust as a box, an imaginary box where you put your things. You put your things in there, you tell everybody with this trust that you’re in control of the box and the things in it, or you and your spouse are, and if you’re incapacitated or die, somebody else will take over for you.
So what are the benefits of having a living revocable trust? Well, one of the benefits is that during your lifetime, if you have a spouse, you and your spouse have something like a power of attorney. So if somebody’s incapacitated then your spouse should have the power in that living revocable trust to become the sole trustee, because remember you’re the trustee during your lifetime, you and your spouse if you have one. Or you can appoint a successor trustee that’s supposed to take over if you’re incapacitated. This allows people to use your living revocable trust like a power of attorney for the assets that are listed in the trust.
That’s one benefit of a living revocable trust. The second thing is that the living revocable trust has no tax consequences. When you fund a living revocable trust by transferring titles or titling things in the name of the trust, the IRS doesn’t care about it. It still won’t protect you from things like the Medicaid spend down, which means getting your money low enough that you can receive Medicaid, but it will not affect the IRS saying that you are sheltering money. It won’t help you with your taxes. It won’t hurt you on your taxes. So that is another benefit of the living revocable trust.
The second thing is, is it’s revocable. As is in the title, you can revoke it at any time that you want. You just declare it revoked in writing usually and that will revoke it. And the third thing that’s useful about a living revocable trust is it makes you ready if you become incapacitated or if you die. And when you die, the next person is set up with instructions in the trust as to how to take care of your assets and what you want to be done with your things.
So if you have any questions about living revocable trusts or any other estate planning needs, again, my name is Jason Lile, a living trust lawyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You can find us on OklahomaWillandTrust.com and you can call us at 918-876-4500 and ask for attorney Jason Lile.