Help Protect Your Legacy With A Trust
By: Sam Bordcosh
Success in the food industry is hard enough for business owners with their time being in such short supply. However, building a successful business is nothing without a proper estate plan to protect and preserve your life’s work. Using trusts is a great way to protect assets, help create a legacy, and maintain control of your estate.
FIBR members are always consumed with the rigors of every day operations. It can be both time consuming and confusing to adequately create a proper estate plan that will protect their life’s hard work and still allow them to maintain some control and income. With proper estate planning, business owners’ wishes for preserving their estates and caring for their families can be realized. We are able to help members, and develop the sense of security that they need to take their businesses to a higher level.
Establishing a trust may be a solution to help protect your estate during and after your lifetime, and allow you to leave a lasting legacy.
What Is a Trust?
A trust is an agreement where money or other assets are held and managed by one person for the benefit of another. Different types of trusts may be created to accomplish specific goals. Each kind may vary in the degree of flexibility and control it offers.
The benefits of trusts can include:
- Providing personal and financial safeguards for family and other beneficiaries;
- Postponing or avoiding unnecessary taxes;
- Establishing a means of controlling or administering property; and
- Meeting other social or commercial goals.
Are There Different Types of Trusts?
Trusts may be classified by their purposes, by the ways they are created, the nature of the property they contain, and their duration. One common way to describe trusts is by their relationship to the trustor’s life. In this regard, trusts are generally classified as either living trusts, or testamentary trusts.
Living Trusts are created during the lifetime of the trustor – the person who provides property and
creates a trust. Property held in a living trust is not normally subject to probate (the court-supervised
process to validate a will and transfer property on the death of the trustor). Such trusts are widely used because they allow the trustor to designate a trustee to provide professional management.
Examples of those who might benefit from a living trust include owners of out-of-state real estate, or
those who own complex investments that need a professional trustee.
Testamentary Trusts are created as part of a will and become effective upon the death of the person making the will (the "decedent"). This type of trust is commonly used to conserve or transfer wealth. The will provides that part or all of the decedent's estate will go to a trustee who is charged with administering the trust property and distributing assets to beneficiaries according to the provisions of the trust. A testamentary trust gives the trustor substantial control over his or her estate distribution. It also may be used to achieve significant savings in the future.
Trusts offer a unique solution for estate planning. But like any savings tool, trusts are best utilized as part of a comprehensive financial strategy developed between you and your financial representative.
Samer Bordcosh is a financial advisor with Tax & Financial Group, and has been actively involved in the FIBR; advocating the best interests of the members. He has worked closely with the members in helping them become good stewards of the wealth they create, as well as helping them cure difficult business and estate issues. For more information please contact Sam 949 463 0202 or via email : samer.bordcosh@tfgroup.com. Jim McCloskey 949 223 8335 or via email: jim.mccloskey@tfgroup.com.
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