Tag: Estate Planning

Trump Accounts stopped being a hypothetical on July 4, 2026. One year after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or OBBBA, created them, families can now open accounts, claim the $1,000 federal seed contribution, and start making contributions. Advisors are already fielding two questions: “Should my client open one?” and “How does this fit into the estate plan?”

The first question is easy for eligible newborns or for others who may be eligible for philanthropic gifts: the contribution is free money, and there is no reason to leave it unclaimed. The second question is where advisors can immediately add value to their clients. A Trump Account is a traditional IRA wearing a new label, and that single fact drives almost every estate and tax planning consequence that follows.

What is a Trump Account?

A Trump Account is a tax-advantaged investment account for children under age 18 who have a Social Security number. Under IRS guidance, it is a traditional IRA established for the child and designated as a Trump Account at the time it is opened. The child is both the beneficiary and the legal owner. Only one funded Trump Account is allowed per child.

The account was created by the OBBBA, signed into law on July 4, 2025, and accounts became available on July 4, 2026. Families start the process by filing an election with the IRS, either through Form 4547 or the online tool at
trumpaccounts.gov.

Here is how Trump Accounts compare with the accounts advisors already use for minors:

How do Trump Account contributions work?

The total that can be contributed to a Trump Account is $5,000 per child per year, combined across most sources, with the cap indexed for inflation after 2027. During the growth period, which ends on December 31 of the year before the beneficiary turns 18, contributions can be made without regard to the child’s earned income. Beginning January 1 of the calendar year in which the beneficiary turns 18, most special Trump Account rules fall away and the account is generally governed by traditional IRA rules.

The sources differ in ways that matter later:

• Federal seed, or pilot program.
  A one-time $1,000 contribution for U.S. citizen children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, claimed through the IRS election. It does not count toward the annual cap, and it will be taxable when withdrawn.
• Individual contributions.
  Anyone can contribute, including parents, grandparents, and family friends. There is no earned income requirement for the child. These contributions are after-tax and nondeductible, which means they create basis that comes out tax-free later.
• Employer contributions.
  An employer may contribute up to $2,500 per year per employee, indexed for inflation, splittable among an employee’s children. These are excluded from the employee’s income, are pre-tax, and count toward the $5,000 cap. Employees may also redirect pay pre-tax through a salary reduction arrangement.
• Qualified general contributions.
  Eligible governmental entities and Section 501(c)(3) organizations may fund contributions for a defined qualified class of beneficiaries through the Treasury-administered framework. These contributions are not subject to the ordinary $5,000 annual limit and generally do not create basis.

Notice the pattern: every dollar entering the account carries a tax character that determines its treatment decades from now. That is the recordkeeping burden discussed below.

How are Trump Accounts taxed?

Growth is tax-deferred. Investments are generally limited to mutual funds or ETFs tracking qualifying broad indexes composed primarily of U.S. equities, without leverage and with annual fees and expenses of no more than 0.10%.

Withdrawals are generally prohibited before age 18. Starting January 1 of the year the beneficiary turns 18, traditional IRA rules apply. Pre-tax amounts, including the federal seed, employer contributions, and charitable contributions, and all earnings are taxed as ordinary income. Withdrawals before age 59½ typically face a 10% penalty unless an exception applies, such as certain education expenses, a first-time home purchase of up to $10,000, birth or adoption costs, disability, or qualifying medical expenses. Required minimum distribution rules apply as well. After-tax individual contributions come out tax-free.

Three consequences deserve more attention than they are getting:

Estate planning considerations for Trump Accounts

This is where most coverage stops and where the real questions start.

Contributions are completed gifts, but the cap does the limiting

A contribution to a child’s Trump Account is a gift to the child. Unlike gifts to 529 plans or UTMA accounts, the gift is not automatically a gift of a present interest, meaning that it does not qualify for the annual gift tax exclusion and contributions may be subject to gift taxes. In Revenue Procedure 2026-25, the IRS provided that under certain circumstances, a gift to a Trump Account would constitute a gift of a present interest.

This safe harbor is met when the taxpayer is an individual, the only taxable gifts made by the taxpayer during the calendar year are cash contributions to one or more Trump Accounts, the taxpayer’s total gifts during the calendar year to each individual who is an account beneficiary do not exceed the annual exclusion amount, the contributions do not generate gift or GST tax liability, and the taxpayer is not otherwise required to file a gift tax return.

Even if the safe-harbor provisions have been met, the annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient in 2026, so the $5,000 account cap, not the gift tax, is the binding constraint. An individual who wants to move meaningful wealth out of their estate will exhaust a Trump Account’s capacity almost immediately. For estate reduction at scale, the Trump Account is a rounding error next to annual exclusion gifting programs, 529 superfunding, or lifetime exemption gifts under the new $15 million exemption, or $30 million for married couples, that took effect January 1, 2026.

The account belongs to the child from day one

Unlike a 529, where the account owner retains control and can change beneficiaries, a Trump Account is owned by the child. The contributor gives up control permanently. That is a feature for estate inclusion purposes because the asset is out of the contributor’s estate, and a drawback for families who value flexibility. There is no mechanism to redirect the money to a sibling, claw it back, or gate it behind trust terms.

If the beneficiary dies, the account is in the child’s estate

Because the child owns the account, the balance is includible in the child’s gross estate at death and passes under the beneficiary designation or, absent one, under state law and the custodial agreement. IRS guidance on beneficiary designations for minors’ accounts is still developing. Advisors should flag this as an open item and revisit it as guidance lands.

After 18, every traditional IRA planning issue applies

Once the beneficiary reaches adulthood, the family has options: keep the account as a Trump Account under general IRA rules, roll it to a traditional IRA or eligible workplace plan, or potentially execute a Roth conversion, on which further IRS guidance is expected. A conversion in the beneficiary’s low-income years, such as ages 18 to 25 before peak earnings, may be the single most valuable planning move available, turning deferred ordinary income into tax-free growth at the lowest rates the beneficiary may ever see.

When the account owner eventually dies with a balance, the SECURE Act’s post-death distribution rules apply, meaning most non-spouse heirs must empty the inherited account within 10 years. Beneficiary designations, trust-as-beneficiary drafting, and distribution timing all become live issues, exactly as they are for any traditional IRA. An asset created at a child’s birth in 2026 could still be generating estate planning work in 2096.

Children with disabilities: the ABLE rollover

A beneficiary with a qualifying disability may roll Trump Account funds into an ABLE account at age 17. For families with special needs planning in place, this rollover should be coordinated with the existing special needs trust structure before the window opens.

Keeping the whole picture coherent

A Trump Account is one more asset that has to fit inside a family’s larger plan: wills, revocable trusts, beneficiary designations, 529s, custodial accounts, and insurance. The failure mode is predictable. Assets accumulate across accounts with inconsistent beneficiary designations, and no one notices until a death forces the issue. This is precisely the visibility problem Wealth.com’s platform is built to solve. Advisors can see every account, designation, and document in one place and catch the inconsistencies while they are still inexpensive to fix.

Considerations for business-owner clients

Business-owner clients should evaluate whether a Section 128 Trump Account contribution program belongs in their benefits strategy. Under Section 128, an employer may contribute up to $2,500 per employee per year, indexed after 2027, to the Trump Account of the employee or the employee’s dependent, provided the contribution is made under a separate written Trump Account contribution program. The exclusion is per employee, not per child, and the contribution counts toward the beneficiary’s $5,000 annual non-exempt contribution limit.

Employers may also allow pre-tax salary reduction contributions through a Section 125 cafeteria plan, but only for contributions to a dependent’s Trump Account, not the employee’s own account. Contributions are excluded from the employee’s gross income and are generally expected to be deductible by the employer if otherwise deductible as compensation or employee benefit expense. Advisors should coordinate with payroll and benefits counsel because current guidance does not clearly exclude these amounts from FICA or FUTA wages.

Trump Account vs. 529 plan: which should clients fund first?

For most families, the order of operations looks like this:

1. Claim the federal seed.
   If the child was born between 2025 and 2028, file the election. This costs nothing.
2. Capture employer dollars.
   If the client’s employer offers Trump Account contributions, that is pre-tax compensation the client otherwise forfeits.
3. Then prioritize by goal.
   Education savings still favor the 529. Tax-free qualified withdrawals beat tax-deferred ordinary income, and superfunding, which allows five years of annual exclusion gifts at once, makes the 529 the stronger estate-reduction tool. A custodial Roth IRA beats both for children with earned income. The Trump Account’s niche is general-purpose, no-earned-income-required investing for a child, with free government and employer money attached.

The honest summary for clients is to take the free money, use the employer channel if it exists, and review the alternatives before directing discretionary after-tax dollars here instead of a 529 or Roth.

Action items for advisors in 2026

• Screen the client base for children and grandchildren born January 1, 2025, or later. Every eligible child without an election on file is leaving $1,000 unclaimed.
• Talk to business-owner clients about the employer contribution as a benefits and retention play: up to $2,500 per employee per year, excluded from employee income.
• Set up basis records now for any account receiving after-tax contributions. Do not wait for the custodian’s reporting to mature.
• Add Trump Accounts to the estate plan review checklist, including beneficiary designation status, coordination with trusts, and the ABLE rollover window for special needs families.
• Watch for IRS guidance on Roth conversions, rollovers to outside custodians, and beneficiary designation mechanics. Several important details remain unsettled.

Frequently asked questions

This article is for informational purposes only and is not legal or tax advice. Several aspects of Trump Accounts remain subject to further IRS guidance; details described here reflect guidance available as of July 2026.