Blog Posts in July, 2012

The estate tax marital deduction is used to reduce the gross taxable estate of a decedent for purposes of calculating estate tax. It generally is the value of property that passes from a deceased ...

If a resident of California creates a revocable living trust (sometimes referred to as an “inter vivos” or “family” trust), that person has taken an important first step. However, without funding the ...

When assets are transferred to a trust, the assets become the “principal” of the trust or its “corpus”. Upon the death of the creator of the trust, the principal/corpus is controlled by the terms of ...

I have explained why trusts need to be funded in order to avoid probate in the previous two posts. But simply having a funded trust does not mean that you don’t need to also have a will. No one is ...

The short answer, if you have minor children, is yes. Even though you may have created a revocable living trust and you have been diligent about funding it, a revocable living trust is essentially a ...