Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Wills and trust question

It is always best to have a current will that does whatever you want done, so update now. If you do the trust, there (likely) will still be a document some refer to as a "pour-over" will that dispenses anything not inside the trust. When you get to the new state, just have a licensed attorney do a quick review and tweak it if necessary to conform to your new state's law. It could be that nothing needs to be done.

Either way, it is best to have a document review every few years or when you have a significant life change/event. There are all kinds of trusts. Make sure you go to an attorney who specializes in estate planning. All wills and trusts are not created equally.

Good advice here.

Depending on how much you have in assets and where they are located, and your family situation, you may want to put title assets in a trust in one of a few states that have extremely favorable (i.e., low) state and local taxes and beneficial laws on asset protection.

The top two I recommend are 1) South Dakota and 2) Wyoming. They have by far and away the best laws, even permitting very long range "dynasty" trusts. They also are known for integrity, unlike some states. <g>.

You do not need to establish residence in either, but you must set up the trust under local law and have a local co-trustee to qualify and administer the trust. You can use your own lawyer to set them up, and another co-trustee of your choice, but the wills and trust docs must be reviewed by the local co-trustee to assure that they take advantage of the local law. That requires a fee to administer the trust but it is quite economical since it is mainly "back office" work.

Several very rich MN families use SD trusts, and in some cases they have complex trust structures because of their family situations. MN imposes fairly high local taxes, though not as high as the very worst, which are NY, NJ, CT and CA.

There is huge capital flight today from high to low tax states, as noted in Trevor H. Browns' book "How Money Walks." Brown uses US Census data, which is rock solid.

I am a big proselytizer about this, since I think the high tax states badly abuse their residents. It just makes sense to preserve one's hard-earned assets for uses of your own choice (family, charity, alumni purpose) rather than ones chosen by pols.

If you want to get more tips on this, shoot me a PM. I won't charge for it.


Your comments are precisely why we will leave this tax hell hole. Thanks

Geez Norm, as long as you're not looking to charge why not put it out for everybody?

Anjin, where would New Mexico fit in the tax "tier", for lack of a better term?

Wife and I need to update our old will and likely set up a trust.

It is likely that we will move to another state in the next year or two. Are wills and trusts portable across state lines, or would we need to start over in a new state?

Thanks

Mostly. There is a Uniform Trust Code that most states adhere to. There are a few that don't however.

What state are you going to?

If you move to a community property state--you will have different issues than a "regular/common law" state.

Each state will have a different tax system--like bolt action rifles, they are all the same, and all different.

Here in Oregon-- we have aggressive Medicaid recovery, inheritance tax, and no gift tax.

We also have mandatory malpractice insurance--my insurance won't let me review out of state trusts efficiently. We generally restate the trust instead.

BMT