Massachusetts companies
Question
Best Term Life Insurance Quotes Ownership?
My wife and I are in our 40's and 50's. We have created A/B trusts and transferred our assets to them, and expect to have estates that will benefit from the estate tax saving these trusts afford. We recently both purchased $1M 10-year renewable term life insurance policies that we expect to keep for 10 years. We chose not to use life insurance trusts because the purpose of the policies is to replace the lost income of the deceased spouse if one of us dies relatively soon, not to increase our final estate, and the trusts are somewhat costly. We each specified our own trusts as the beneficiaries, because we want the disposition of assets specified there to be used for this money. The trusts provide for the income, and principle if needed, to be paid to the spouse, and for the remainder to be paid to our child at the remaining spouses death. The question of ownership of the policies is less clear. My lawyer says that it doesn't make much difference who owns them, because the value (estate) taxed is only one year's premium, not the $1M. My accountant says that the $1M is taxed, and that each policy should be owned by the other spouse to avoid tax on that amount. A friend said that there's no way to avoid or significantly decrease the tax, so just leave the ownership as is (each spouse owns their own policy). A further fly in the ointment is that the insurance company (Massachusetts SBLI) makes some forms of trust ownership more difficult and costly. I'm confused. What ownership is the best? What is the benefit of that choice?
6 months ago - 3 answers
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by Jim
6 months ago
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Hi Gerard! There is no estate tax between spouses. All value can be passed from husband to wife or vice versa without any probate or estate tax. Those apply when value is passed to the next generation. So, whether your insurance goes into the b trust or the a trust is not a tax concern. Normally, The surviving spouse can use either part of the trust for their welfare and benefit. Access to the funds is not an issue. The Living trust that you set up does 4 things. 1. "avoids probate". That is worth doing, and as long as the insurance is handled IN THE TRUST, it is not an issue. 2. "Provides for specific distribution". If you both name the same beneficiaries, or the insurance is used up by the time of distribution, it is not an issue. 3. "Provides incase you become incompetent to handle your affairs". that means you have already chosen someone to handle your finances, if you have chosen eachother as trustees, it is not an issue. 4. "Maximizes your Prepaid tax credit". This is the Estate tax part. Each of us can pass to the next generation XX amount of money with no estate taxes due. That number is going up, so we'll leave it at XX. Traditionally, without a trust, the First To Die(FTD) passes ALL to the spouse and nothing to the NextGen. When the Last to Die (LTD) dies all is passed through the one conduit to the NextGen. If the amount is enough it could create a taxable event. The trust, stops the automatic transfer from the FTD to the spouse. and earmarks it for the next gen. The spouse gets to manage it. When the LTD passes away the trust transfers the two separate parts to the NextGen, in TWO conduits and smaller amount from each person, this could eliminate or reduce the estate tax. This is the only place that your choice of where to put the money could have an effect. But where it is, is not as important as HOW it is managed. If the LTD, retains all of their earnings and spends the Insurance, the LTD part (or B part) of the trust is going to get much larger, and the FTD part (or A Part) of the trust will be much smaller. Resulting a potential of having too much in one side and not enough in the other. Your friend is technically accurate, you and your spouse are not really separate in this and which ever pocket it falls into, it's still in your pocket. You did not say whether you are in business or not. If you are there are some ways that you can drastically reduce the taxes. If you want more information,You can refer to this blog which show you an article about Affordable Term Life Insurance Quote and Term Life Insurance Quote : Affordable Term Life Insurance Quote Online: affordable-termlife-insurancequote ... How to get The Best Term Life Insurance Quote ARTICLE term-life-insurancequotes ... Affordable Term Life Insurance Quote VIDEOS affordable-termlife-insurancequote ... The Best Term Life Insurance Quote VIDEOS term-life-insurancequotes ... DEfintion from Answer.com www ... Hope that helps, ask again if you need- regards- Richard Man U
by Richard Man U- 6 months ago