APTs are also designed to protect and enhance the interests and welfare of your children and grandchildren. Not everyone will necessarily be in agreement with the trust scenario you've implemented and will have different ideas on how to use their inheritance, such as continuing to expand their trust fund to spending it all frivolously. Or, they could have very different financial concerns such as a growing family, a business under financial stress, or physical disabilities that require expensive ongoing medical attention. The APT can be structured to ensure that beneficiaries are provided for depending on their unique situation, core values, and family welfare.

Properly designed, an Asset Protection Plan is a powerful and flexible tool for fostering responsible and purposeful transfers of wealth to enhance the quality of life of your heirs and their descendants. For additional information, select from one of the following:

Forming an APT

An Asset Protective Trust should be implemented during your life by engaging the services of a qualified trust and tax specialist attorney.

	You will need to make decisions as to who will be beneficiary(s) of the trust and what distribution rights the beneficiary(s) will be given.
	Determine who will have control of the trust during your lifetime in order to make all investment decisions concerning the assets of the trust.
	Choose who will succeed you as trustee of the trust upon your passing and how, how much, and for what purposes distributions to the beneficiaries are to be made. Return to the APT Options
	Return to Top of Page

How an APT is Funded

Funding can occur during your lifetime by gifting and sale transfers and/or it can be funded following your passing or the passing of your spouse.

	Assets that are gifted while you are alive (including appreciation on those assets) will not be included in your estate upon your passing, for Federal Estate Tax purposes.
	If you will not have a taxable estate, then an APT may be created or funded following your passing or the passing of your spouse.
	The primary APT can be divided into as many "sub" APTs as needed upon your passing. Each beneficiary may then take over as trustee of his or her own APT for his or her benefit. Return to the APT Options
	Return to Top of Page

Becoming an APT Beneficiary

You may not be a beneficiary of your own APT otherwise the trust's assets will be taxed when you and/or your spouse pass on. However, there are three options available that can be employed to permit you to have access to the APT funds.

	Borrowing: You could actually borrow the needed funds by giving the Trustee a note bearing market rate interest for a specified number of years, fully amortized or "interest only" with a balloon payment at the end of the term.
	Separate Property Transfer: If you are married, your spouse could transfer their assets to your individual assets (or vice versa) and transfer the combined assets to an APT. The non-contributing spouse would then be named a beneficiary of the APT and have access to the trust funds as long as you remain married and live together.
	Sale of Assets to the APT: You can sell property or assets to the APT in exchange for an interest bearing note over a specified period of time. Properly structured, there would be no income taxes on the sale of assets to the trust and you would only pay tax on any interest earned or capital gains (if any) for any sales of trust assets to third parties. Return to the APT Options
	Return to Top of Page