Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog
A TAP trust is an extremely versatile trust designed to hold a variety of assets. This type of trust helps the grantor avoid needless estate taxes without the restrictions of other trusts.
The TAP trust can hold a variety of assets that include: real estate, stocks, insurance policies, bonds, and a few other business interests. A TAP trust can even own an IRA after the grantors death.
A TAP trust can set up as a grantor, or non-grantor trust. This distinction will decide h A non-grantor trust is taxed like a separate taxpayer with all income directly taxed to the trust at a trust income tax rate. However as a grantor trust, all income is taxed on the personal income tax of the grantor at an individual’s tax rate.
Those who are knowledgeable of estate planning have most likely encountered an ILIT, or an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust. This trust was designed to hold life insurance policies after a person dies to ensure the funds within the trust were not included in the probate of the estate.
The ILIT can be either a grantor or non-grantor trust. A grantor trust is a trust in which the IRS deems the grantor the owner of the funds for tax purposes. This means all of the income generated by the trust is taxed to the grantor and the trust is spared the tax. This is sometimes ideal because the top tax rate for a trust occurs around $11,000, while the top tax bracket for an individual is only reached at the $450,000 mark.
Traditionally, the ILIT trust was used, along with a few other trusts, to secure a person’s assets through estate planning. The TAP trust is a fairly new trust that provides much more flexibility and convenience for clients because one trust can hold so many different assets. A TAP trust is so flexible it can even be used for IRA planning purposes by acting as the stand-alone IRA trust.
Another great way a grantor can use a TAP trust is to use the trust to make annual gifts to avoid yearly estate taxes. These taxes are avoided by the trust making annual gifts in the amount of the tax exclusion, which is currently $14,000. These gifts should be made to the grantor’s beneficiaries, such as children and grandchildren. In turn, these benefactors should be appointed as trustee of their own separate trust and have the funds deposited there.
The main purpose of the TAP trust is to ensure all gifts made to the trust will be excluded from the grantor’s estate. For more information on TAP trusts and how they can benefit your estate, contact Jacksonville attorney David Goldman today.