Author: Dan Bolton

Gifting plays a crucial role in wealth transfer planning, allowing individuals to support loved ones, fund education, and optimize their estate plans. As a financial advisor, understanding and discussing gifting strategies with your clients is essential, particularly with the potential tax law changes set to take effect at the end of 2025. 

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) significantly increased the lifetime gift and estate tax exemption, but these provisions are set to sunset after 2025, reverting to pre-2018 levels. While the Trump Administration is pushing to make these tax cuts permanent, high-net-worth clients who haven’t yet taken advantage of the elevated exemptions may still want to consider accelerating their gifting plans. 

Here’s what advisors need to know to guide their clients through the complexities of gifting and help them optimize their wealth transfer plans.

Understanding the basics of gifting rules and exemptions 

To effectively guide clients, advisors must grasp the basics of gifting rules and exemptions:

• Annual exclusion: In 2025, individuals can gift up to $19,000 per recipient without triggering gift tax reporting. Married couples have the ability to combine their annual exclusions to gift up to $38,000 per recipient. This amount is indexed for inflation and may increase in future years.
• Lifetime gift tax exemption: The current lifetime gift tax exemption is $13.99 million per individual in 2025 but is set to revert to an estimated $7 million (adjusted for inflation) after 2025 if the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act sunsets. 
• Gift tax reporting: Gifts exceeding the annual exclusion may require filing Form 709, even if no gift tax is ultimately owed due to the lifetime exemption. 
• Unlimited gifting exceptions: Direct payments for educational expenses (tuition only) and medical expenses are exempt from gift tax limits. This means that paying a grandchild’s college tuition or a parent’s hospital bill should not typically count towards the annual exclusion or lifetime exemption.
• Estate tax interplay: Taxable gifts made during life reduce the available estate tax exemption at death. This creates an interconnected planning dynamic, where lifetime gifts and bequests at death must be strategically balanced. 

Tailoring gifting approaches to client wealth goals 

Effective gifting strategies often vary based on a client’s wealth level and goals. Here’s a high-level breakdown:

Mass affluent clients ($5M or less)

For clients with more modest estates, consider these simpler gifting strategies:

• Direct family gifts: Annual exclusion gifts of cash, property, or other assets to children, grandchildren, or other relatives can help support their financial needs while incrementally reducing the taxable estate.
• Education funding: Contributing to 529 plans for children or grandchildren’s education qualify for the annual exclusion, and some states offer additional tax deductions or credits. Plus, the assets grow tax-free if used for qualified education expenses.
• First-time homebuyer assistance: Helping family members with down payments on a first home is a popular gifting strategy. These gifts can be structured as annual exclusion gifts, or larger amounts can be reported as taxable gifts using the lifetime exemption.
• Charitable giving: Modest charitable gifts, whether direct donations or through donor-advised funds, can provide income tax deductions and reduce the taxable estate. 

High-net-worth clients (Over $5M)

Wealthier clients, especially those with estates exceeding the current lifetime exemption amount, may benefit from more advanced gifting structures: 

• Irrevocable trust strategies: Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs) can transfer appreciating assets to beneficiaries with minimal gift tax impact. Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILITs) remove life insurance proceeds from the taxable estate. Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRTs) provide an income stream to the grantor while benefiting charity and reducing the taxable estate.
• Family limited partnerships (FLPs): FLPs pool family assets under a central entity and allow for discounted gifting of partnership interests. 
• Dynasty trusts: These long-term trusts are designed to minimize estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes over multiple generations. 
• Charitable giving: Private foundations and charitable lead trusts allow for more specific philanthropic impact while offering estate and gift tax benefits. 

Navigating the tax landscape of gifting 

Gifting strategies can have large tax implications that advisors must help clients navigate:

• Basis considerations: Gifted assets generally retain the donor’s cost basis (known as “carryover basis”), which can lead to larger capital gains taxes for recipients if the assets are later sold. Inherited assets that have appreciated typically receive a “stepped-up basis” to fair market value at the owner’s death, potentially reducing capital gains for heirs. 
• Generation-skipping transfer (GST) Tax: Gifts to grandchildren or later generations (known as “skip persons”) may trigger an additional 40% GST tax without proper allocation of the GST exemption (which currently mirrors the gift and estate tax exemptions). 
• State-specific issues: Some states also impose their own estate or inheritance taxes with exemptions far below the federal amount. States may have separate gift taxes. 
• Income tax implications: Certain gifting strategies, such as transferring appreciated assets or creating grantor trusts, can impact the donor’s income tax situation. For example, income generated by assets in a grantor trust is taxed to the grantor, not the trust itself. 
• Timing considerations: Advisors should help clients time gifts strategically. For example, gifting appreciating assets early shifts future growth out of the taxable estate. With the potential impending reduction of the gift and estate tax exemptions in 2026, planning to utilize the higher exemptions before they sunset could yield significant tax savings.

Debunking gifting myths: What clients need to know 

Navigating gifting strategies can be complicated, and clients often have misconceptions that advisors must address:

• Clients may not realize that some gifts need to be reported even though they are under the lifetime exemption amount. It is important that clients are aware of their tax reporting obligations, even if it will not actually result in a tax liability being due.
• Some clients confuse gift tax and estate tax rules, not understanding that taxable gifts during life also reduce the available estate tax exemption at death. Others may think that all gifts are inherently taxable or that only cash gifts need to be reported.
• Clients often don’t realize that indirect gifts, like paying a family member’s expenses or forgiving a loan, can count as reportable gifts. Helping with a down payment, covering medical bills (if paid directly to the provider), or even adding a joint owner to a bank account all have potential gift tax implications that need to be properly tracked and reported.
• The difference between “carryover basis” for gifts and “stepped-up basis” for inheritances is a frequent point of confusion. Clients may not know how gifting an appreciated asset during life can lead to higher capital gains taxes for the recipient compared to leaving that same asset as a bequest at death.

To help clients visualize potential gifting scenarios and their impact, consider leveraging Wealth.com’s Scenario Builder. While advisors cannot provide legal advice, tools like this can help inform and guide client conversations.

Conclusion

Gifting is a powerful wealth transfer strategy that requires careful planning. By understanding the fundamentals, optimizing for tax implications, and addressing common misconceptions, advisors can help clients navigate the complexities of gifting. 

Remember, the advisor’s role is to educate, guide, and facilitate these conversations, not to provide legal advice. Encourage clients to consult with estate planning attorneys and tax professionals to implement their specific strategies.

As tax laws continue to evolve, advisors who engage clients in gifting discussions will differentiate themselves and provide immense value. Your clients will appreciate your initiative in helping them navigate this complex — but essential — aspect of their financial lives.

Creating a trust is a critical part of estate planning, but a trust is only effective if it’s properly funded. Without the right funding, even the most meticulously drafted trust can fail to achieve its intended purpose, leaving clients vulnerable to probate and other issues they specifically sought to avoid. In this guide, we’ll explain what it means to fund a trust, why funding a trust is so important, and key considerations for funding different types of assets. 

What does it mean to fund a trust? 

“Funding a trust” involves transferring ownership of your assets from yourself as an individual into your trust. Once the assets are owned by the trust, the trust controls those assets, based on the rules you’ve established in the trust document. 

It’s important to note that creating a trust and funding a trust are two separate steps. Creating a trust happens when your client is setting up their estate plan. But funding the trust is the crucial next action—and one where you, as their financial advisor, can add immense value. Even if an attorney created the trust, they may not be deeply involved in the actual funding process.

Funding a trust typically involves:

1. Retitling assets like real estate and vehicles to be owned by the trust
2. Updating beneficiary designations on accounts like life insurance and retirement plans to name the trust
3. Assigning personal property like jewelry, art, and furniture to the trust according to a schedule 

Why funding a trust matters 

A trust only controls the assets it owns. An unfunded trust—sometimes called an “empty” trust—provides little to no benefits and may even defeat the purpose of creating it in the first place. Some key reasons to fund your trust include: 

1. Avoiding probate: One of the main reasons to establish a revocable living trust is to avoid probate, which can be time-consuming, expensive, and public. But only assets titled in the name of the trust (or those passing via another method, such as beneficiary designation) bypass probate. 
2. Protecting your assets: Trusts can provide protection against creditors, lawsuits, divorce, or mismanagement by beneficiaries. Plus, unlike wills, which become public documents during probate, trusts generally maintain privacy. However, this privacy and protection advantage only extends to assets properly placed in the trust. Assets that pass through probate may become part of the public record.
3. Maintaining control: With a trust, you can specify exactly how and when your assets should be distributed to your beneficiaries. But the trust can only control the assets you’ve placed into it.
4. Planning for incapacity: If you become incapacitated, your trustee can typically seamlessly step in to manage the trust assets on your behalf — but only for assets that were properly funded into the trust.

What to know about funding a revocable trust

It’s important for clients to understand that funding a revocable trust does not remove the assets from their taxable estate—unlike many irrevocable trusts which do often remove assets from the taxable estate. Your clients typically still maintain control over the assets placed in the revocable trust and can amend or revoke the trust at any time.

Some clients may worry that transferring assets to a revocable trust means giving up ownership of those assets. Reassure them that this is not typically the case—they will likely maintain full control, but the trust now holds legal title.

Not all assets should be placed in a revocable trust. Assets that already have named beneficiaries, like retirement accounts and life insurance policies, can often be left out of a trust without being subject to probate. Of course, it’s always smart to consult an estate planning attorney to determine if a particular asset should be moved into the trust. Wealth.com’s Attorney Network can be a valuable resource for these decisions.

When to fund a trust 

Most assets can and should be transferred into the trust as soon as possible after the client creates it. Funding the trust promptly ensures the assets are protected in the event something happens to the client. It may also be easier for clients to follow through on funding sooner rather than later.

This approach immediately provides probate avoidance benefits and allows for simpler management if the individual were to become incapacitated. Funding during the grantor’s lifetime also gives them time to address any complications that arise and offers a chance to refine any funding strategies.

Some assets cannot or should not be placed in a revocable trust during life but can be directed to the trust at death through a “pour-over” will that catches any unfunded assets, beneficiary designations that name the trust or TOD/POD designations to the trust. 

For certain assets like IRAs and 401(k)s, the tax implications of transferring to a trust during life may outweigh the benefits. These assets typically remain outside the trust during the grantor’s life but may name the trust as a beneficiary upon death, depending on the specific situation.

How to fund a trust: by asset type 

Different asset types require different approaches to funding. Let’s examine the most common assets and how to effectively transfer them into a trust.

Real estate

Real estate is often among a client’s most valuable assets, making proper transfer into their trust particularly important. 

How to fund:

• Create and record a new deed transferring the property to the trust
• Update title insurance policies
• Notify homeowner’s insurance companies of the change in title
• For properties with mortgages, check for due-on-sale clauses (though most residential mortgages exempt transfers to revocable trusts)

While transferring real estate to a trust doesn’t typically impact your mortgage or insurance, it’s smart to check with your attorney and providers to confirm. For out-of-state properties, you may want to work with a local attorney familiar with that state’s requirements. When transferring real estate to a trust, always make sure that property tax exemptions won’t be affected.

Bank accounts and brokerage accounts 

Financial accounts are typically simple to transfer to a trust but require the right  documentation.

How to fund:

• Complete the financial institution’s account retitling forms
• Provide the Certification of Trust or similar document
• Update direct deposits and automatic payments as needed

Keep in mind that some institutions may require a new account number. For joint accounts, the couple should decide whether to maintain joint ownership or separate into individual trust accounts. You’ll also want to pay attention to FDIC insurance limits, as trust ownership can sometimes increase coverage. The current FDIC limit is $250,000 per person, per account, per ownership category. 

Personal property

Tangible personal property includes furniture, jewelry, art, collectibles, and other household items.

How to fund:

• Execute an assignment of personal property to the trust
• For high-value items with titles (boats, cars), retitle into the trust name
• Create an inventory of items for the trust records

Keep in mind that vehicles may be difficult to transfer in some states due to registration issues. You’ll also want to make sure you’re updating insurance policies for items transferred to the trust. For valuable collections or artwork, consider getting an appraisal before transferring to the trust. This establishes a baseline value and can help with later tax decisions.

Business interests

Transferring business interests requires extra consideration of any tax implications, operating agreements, and succession planning.

How to fund:

• For sole proprietorships, execute an assignment to the trust
• For partnerships, LLCs, or corporations, transfer ownership interests according to the entity’s governing documents
• Update stock certificates, membership certificates, or partnership records

Before transferring any business interest to a trust, review the operating agreement or bylaws with the client’s attorney to make sure the transfer won’t trigger unintended consequences or buyout provisions.

Retirement accounts

Retirement accounts like IRAs and 401(k)s present an extra challenge due to their tax treatment.

How to fund:

• Generally, retirement accounts should NOT be transferred to a trust during the owner’s lifetime, as this can trigger immediate taxation
• Instead, consider naming the trust as a beneficiary

Keep in mind that the SECURE Act has significantly changed the rules for inherited retirement accounts. Trust provisions must be carefully drafted to optimize tax treatment for trust beneficiaries. For married couples, spousal rollovers often provide better tax treatment than having the account flow through a trust. 

When naming a trust as a beneficiary of retirement accounts, there are various considerations to take into account that could affect the administrative burden and tax liabilities that could result. For example, one consideration is making sure the trust includes a ‘see-through’ provision that allows for required minimum distributions to be calculated based on the beneficiaries’ life expectancies. 

Life insurance and annuities 

Life insurance and annuities pass by beneficiary designation and typically remain outside the trust during the owner’s lifetime.

How to fund:

• Consider naming the trust as beneficiary rather than transferring ownership
• For specific estate planning needs, a specialized irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) may be more appropriate

Keep in mind that changing ownership of policies may have gift tax implications, and that some annuities may have surrender charges if ownership is transferred. Make sure you review life insurance beneficiary designations regularly, as many clients inadvertently nullify trust planning by naming individuals directly rather than their trust.

What if a couple has individual trusts? 

For married couples who have decided to create individual trusts rather than a joint trust, they’ll need to decide how to divide their assets between the two trusts. 

There may be strategic considerations when dividing assets — like if one spouse is more susceptible to litigation or creditor issues (like a business owner) or if one is more likely to need long-term care (and may want to plan for Medicaid eligibility).

Here are a few additional tips:

• Community property may need to be converted to separate property before being funded into individual trusts
• The division of assets should align with each spouse’s estate planning goals
• Make sure beneficiary designations on non-trust assets align with the overall estate plan

How financial advisors can help with trust funding 

While an attorney may have been involved in the drafting of the trust documents, they may not provide the full guidance on funding. Many clients are left with the impression that their estate plan is complete after signing the trust, not realizing that funding is a separate and crucial step. Financial advisors can help by:

1. Creating an inventory of assets. Help clients identify all assets that should be considered for trust funding.
2. Developing a funding strategy. Work with the client’s attorney to determine which assets should be transferred to the trust and which should use beneficiary designations.
3. Assisting with financial account transfers. Guide clients through the process of retitling bank and investment accounts.
4. Monitoring funding progress. Create a tracking system to ensure all intended assets are properly transferred.
5. Conducting periodic reviews. As clients acquire new assets or experience life changes, review and update the funding plan accordingly.

If questions arise, you can always help the client consult an attorney, such as one through Wealth.com’s national Attorney Network.

Conclusion

Trust funding is an essential part of estate planning, yet it remains one of the most frequently overlooked aspects. By understanding the processes of trust funding, advisors can provide more robust assistance to their clients, helping them avoid costly mistakes and make sure their estate plans work as intended.

Remember that trust funding is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring. By incorporating trust funding reviews into your service model, you can strengthen client relationships and deliver more holistic financial guidance.