Estate & Trust Planning Guides

Plain-English explainers on trusts, estate and gift tax, charitable strategies, and wealth transfer — each paired with a free calculator.

• How Trust Fund Distributions Actually Work — Principal, income, growth, and the schedule that determines how long a trust lasts — explained without the jargon.
• The 2026 Estate Tax Exemption, Explained — The exemption is $15 million per person in 2026. Here's what that means for federal and state estate tax — and who still needs to plan.
• Protecting a Beneficiary From Inflation — A fixed distribution quietly loses value every year. Here's how to size payments that hold real purchasing power over decades.
• Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax 101 — The GST tax is a second layer of tax on gifts to grandchildren. Here's who it hits, the $15M exemption, and how to avoid surprises.
• Is a Charitable Remainder Trust Right for You? — A CRT can turn an appreciated asset into lifetime income, a tax deduction, and a gift to charity. Here's the trade-off in plain terms.
• Qualified Charitable Distributions and Your RMD — After 70½, giving directly from your IRA can beat writing a check — it lowers your AGI and counts toward your required minimum distribution.
• How Trust Distributions Are Taxed to Beneficiaries — Who pays the tax — the trust or the beneficiary — depends on distributable net income. Here's how the same dollar can be taxed very differently.
• Dynasty Trusts and Multi-Generational Wealth — A dynasty trust can keep assets compounding for generations without paying estate tax at each death. Here's the math and the limits.
• SLATs: Estate Planning You Can Still Access — A spousal lifetime access trust removes assets from your estate while letting your spouse tap them if needed. Here's how it threads that needle.
• How an ILIT Removes Life Insurance From Your Estate — Life insurance you own is part of your taxable estate. An irrevocable life insurance trust keeps the entire death benefit out of it.
• The Step-Up in Basis, Explained — Inheriting an appreciated asset can erase a lifetime of capital gains. Here's why holding until death sometimes beats gifting or selling.
• Five Wealth Transfer Strategies Compared — Do nothing, gift, use a dynasty trust, or give to charity? See how the same estate produces very different outcomes for heirs.
• GRATs: Passing Appreciation to Heirs Tax-Free — A grantor retained annuity trust lets you move an asset's future growth to your heirs with little or no gift tax. Here's the mechanism.
• Gift Tax: The Annual Exclusion and Lifetime Exemption — Most gifts are never taxed. Here's how the $19,000 annual exclusion and the $15M lifetime exemption actually work in 2026.
• QPRTs: Transfer Your Home to Heirs at a Discount — A qualified personal residence trust freezes your home's value for gift-tax purposes and removes future appreciation from your estate.
• Charitable Lead Trusts: Give Now, Pass the Rest to Heirs — A CLT pays a charity first for a term of years, then returns the remainder to your family — often with a large up-front deduction.
• How Trustee and Executor Fees Work — Fiduciaries are entitled to reasonable compensation. Here's how executor commissions and trustee fees are typically calculated.