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Drafting Trusts for Surviving Spouses in InterActive Legal
November 30, 2022 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EST
Subscriber Drafting Webinars provide continued training on various aspects of using the InterActive Legal software, usually focusing on drafting particular documents or using certain drafting options. These webinars are free to ILS subscribers. They provide insight and training regarding specific documents and options available within the drafting systems. Subscribers will receive an email outlining the topic of each drafting webinar with instructions for registration.
Married clients often want to leave their property to their spouse at death, and that is understandable.
In many cases, the spouses earned, purchased, and/or developed the property they own together, so it makes sense to leave all property to the survivor. In addition, it makes the estate plan much simpler. However, in some cases, a trust is recommended for a variety of reasons:
• To protect property for children from a prior marriage
• To provide for management of property for a spouse who may not want to be the decision-maker
• To protect property from the spouse’s potential creditors
• To shelter property from Medicaid estate recovery
• To allow for efficient estate tax planning
Any one or more of these can change the estate plan so that the draftsperson must consider what type of trust to include for the surviving spouse.
In this subscriber drafting webinar, we will review the types of trusts that can be created for a surviving spouse, including trusts that qualify for the marital deduction (and therefore the step-up in basis at the survivor’s death), discretionary “sprinkle” trusts for the spouse and family, credit-shelter trusts, supplemental needs trusts, and trusts for retirement assets. We will cover how to trigger each of these trusts in the various practice systems, as well as the options for designing each type of trust within Wills, Revocable Trusts, and Joint Revocable Trusts. We’ll also briefly review inter vivos trusts for spouses (sometimes called “SLATs”), and how to draft them in your InterActive Legal program.
This webinar is appropriate for and will discuss drafting in all InterActive Legal practice systems.
Continuing Education Credits
InterActive Legal is not an approved Continuing Education (CE) Sponsor. However, several states and regulatory agencies for a variety of professionals that participate on our teleconferences may still receive continuing education credit for their participation. If a participant wishes to receive CE credit for their participation in these teleconferences, they must apply to receive credit on their own and through their individual states and regulatory authorities. It is the responsibility of the participant to file for CE credit and is not guaranteed by the webinar sponsors.
Speaker Bio
Teresa Bush joined InterActive Legal in 2007 and serves as Director of Education and Support Services.
Ms. Bush has been licensed to practice law since 1991, and focused her practice exclusively on issues of estate and gift tax planning, probate, charitable planning, and estate and trust administration. She began her practice in a small law firm, planning for clients of all levels of wealth. Thereafter, she practiced for a number of years in the Tax Section of Kelly, Hart and Hallman, P.C. in Fort Worth, Texas, and as an estate and gift tax consultant for the Dallas office of Ernst & Young, in both cases focusing on planning for very high net worth clients.
Ms. Bush received her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law, where she was a research assistant for Professor Stanley M. Johanson. She studied at Edinburgh University and the London School of Economics prior to obtaining a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Rice University in Houston. While studying abroad, she worked as an intern for a Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons.
Ms. Bush taught legal research and writing as a Teaching Quizmaster in law school, and later taught estate planning extension courses for American College of Financial Services CLU candidates. She has presented several online webinars on estate planning and drafting topics, and is the author or co-author of a variety of estate planning articles.