Estate Planning Techniques

Heidi Scott is the owner of Schuyler Brown Land Title in Mt. Sterling, Illinois. An Illinois-based attorney, Heidi Scott is an expert at estate planning, tax law, and real estate.

Besides deciding the fate of your assets after death, estate planning also entails safeguarding your assets during your lifetime and resolving any potential issues that may arise in the future. When conducting estate planning, attorneys make use of several approaches.

Firstly, transferring a property to a trust for a defined number of years effectively avoids paying estate tax on a property. This trust is called a Qualified Personal Residence Trust. It allows you to give property without paying taxes while reclaiming possession later. The property’s gift tax value is often a fraction of what it would have been if the owner had retained it until death.

Similarly, a Family Limited Partnership allows people to bestow lifelong gifts without giving up control by assigning non-voting or limited partner shares in a family limited liability firm. These are essential family businesses that assist in decreasing estate taxes by lowering the amount of a person’s estate. As a bonus, gifts and assets delivered through these organizations are shielded from creditors.