Deciding what should go into your trust and what should not, can sometimes be complicated. However, it is not complicated when talking about your investment accounts.
Once you get a proper trust drafted by an experienced estate planning attorney, you then need to start funding the trust. You need to start adding your assets into the trust.
That can sometimes be difficult, since you might not want everything to go into your trust right away. Your estate plan might be created so that it keeps certain assets out of the trust for various reasons. You might not want to wait to put some things in the trust until after you pass away when your will directs that it is where they should go.
One class of assets, however, should almost always go into your trust as The Herald Bulletin discusses in “If you have a trust, that’s where your investments should go.”
Any investments that you have should almost always go into your trust. This is done for tax reasons most of the time, but it is a clear call.
That does not mean, however, that you should put your IRA into a trust. That is a complicated decision that you will want to talk to your attorney about.
However, any other investments should be put into the trust.
Whenever you have questions about what should or should not be placed into your trust, the best thing to do is to ask your estate planning attorney.
Reference: The Herald Bulletin (Dec. 17, 2016) “If you have a trust, that’s where your investments should go.”
