Estate Planning And The Revocable Living Trust
A perfect example of the benefits of reviewing your estate planning documents on, at least, an occasional level, can be seen with the marital revocable living trust, also sometimes known as an “A-B” trust. Should you have such a document, and if it was prepared long ago and never updated, it is probably set up to accomplish exactly the OPPOSITE of what you want it to do.
There are many types of trusts. There are many reasons to set up a trust. With a married couple, the most common type of trust is a marital revocable living trust. Historically, the main purpose of this type of trust was to avoid the probate process at death and to maximize estate tax savings. Prior to the year 2000, all assets passing to a surviving spouse were exempt from estate taxes. However, for assets not passing to a surviving spouse, the maximum estate tax exemption for Ohio estate taxes was $25,000 and the maximum estate tax exemption for federal taxes was $600,000. It was not uncommon for those with a large estate to set up a marital revocable living trust to, in effect, double … Read More... “Estate Planning in Ohio ALERT: Is My Trust Still Appropriate?”
For those receiving long-term care services, Ohio’s Medicaid program has always had a monthly income limit. In 2016, that limit is $2,199 per month. However, until now, Ohio was a spenddown state, which meant that as long as the individual spent down each month on monthly expenses below the income threshold, the individual would be eligible to receive Medicaid services. Effective July 1, 2016, no one will be able to spend down to meet the monthly income threshold, but will need to deposit any excess income into a Qualified Income Trust (QIT) to become eligible for Medicaid coverage.