Credit Shelter Trusts Aren’t Just for the Super Wealthy
Credit shelter trusts are a way to take full advantage of state and federal estate tax exemptions. Although such trusts may appear needless unless you are a multi-millionaire, there are still reasons for those of more modest means to do this kind of planning, and one of the main ones is state taxes. The first $11.7 million (in 2021) of an estate is exempt from federal estate taxes, so theoretically a husband and wife would have no estate tax if their estate is less than $23.4 million. The estate tax is also “portable” between spouses. This means that if the first spouse