Greetings Jerry122732:
I located an interview reference to your query at
http://www.seniormarketadvisor.com/Archives/oct02/feature7.htm but no
books specifically dealing with minors. She did publish "Life and
Death Planning for Retirement Benefits" (see
http://www.bookmasters.com/marktplc/rr00336.htm) which probably covers
minors but because I'm not certain, I hesitate to post my finding as
an answer.
Form the interview snippet first mentioned:
"SMA: At least for the sake of the children.
NC: Right. Minors are legally incapacitated to deal with the money,
and minority ends at age 18 to 21. A lot of parents think that's still
a bit too young so we usually postpone it to 30, 35, 40, something
like that.
That's one common reason for setting up a trust. Another is the credit
shelter marital trust to stay the state taxes. But there are a million
more reasons, such as you're concerned that your spouse is going to
remarry and leave your money to somebody else. You don't want that. Or
maybe your spouse is spendthrift or an alcoholic or a gambler or has a
risky business and could lose everything to the creditors. So, people
have good reasons to set up trusts, and right up until a couple of
months ago it really seemed like you could leave benefits to your
trust and still get this stretch out on the retirement plans. Now
we've moved several steps back in that department." |
