Nobody knows today what the tax law, or your family, will look like when the first of you dies. A Disclaimer Plan starts with what you own: personal belongings, joint property, retirement accounts, and everything else in your name. At the first death, the default is simple. Everything passes outright to the surviving spouse.

Then the surviving spouse looks at the situation as it really is: the tax law, the size of the estate, the family’s needs. Generally within nine months, and before accepting the assets, the spouse can disclaim, or turn down, any part of it.

Disclaiming can use the first spouse’s estate tax exemption, keep future growth out of the survivor’s taxable estate, potentially protect those assets from creditors, and help preserve who ultimately inherits, even if the survivor remarries.

Disclaimed assets move into the Family Trust soon after the first death. A trustee you choose, with successors lined up, manages it, and it can still provide for the surviving spouse. At the second death, what’s left passes to a separate trust for each child, with a deceased child’s share going to that child’s own children, each in their own separate trust.

One plan, with room to decide later. Talk with Stewart Law about whether a Disclaimer Plan fits your family.