Given the expectation the Biden administration will roll back some of Trump’s favorable policies of the past four years, tax consultants and accountants are already hard at work. But for HNW women, dealing with election fallout is minor, compared to the bigger fish they have been frying in the tax pan for decades.
In situations where both spouses want the surviving spouse to inherit all the assets, which is often the case, a joint trust can be far less complicated to set up and maintain than separate trusts, with less headaches for the surviving spouse.
Remember that a will goes through probate, so a husband and wife typically try to avoid it by using joint ownership or beneficiary designations. However, they’re often mistaken by believing the will still controls their estate.