Succession and Tax Planning through Trusts and Wills

How to bequeath your wealth to your successors — and save taxes

Trusts and Wills are two ways of legally distributing your wealth to your intended successors or other beneficiaries. Intelligently planned, these two methods can also help you save tax for yourself and your successors.

While Wills are better known, tax and succession planning through private or family trusts is also a tried and tested way of transferring assets and creating income for your successors, including unborn persons. In fact, private trusts have several great advantages over a Will. While a Will is often challenged in the courts — and the resultant dispute can take years to be settled — a properly created trust can help you pre-empt any such family strife. Secondly, by creating the right trust you can pass on your wealth even during your lifetime.

This book offers expert guidance on how to bequeath your wealth as you want, whether by means of trusts or through a valid Will, in a tax-efficient manner:

• The various types of private and family trusts you can set up.

• Principles and procedure for creating a valid private trust.

• Advantages and tax planning aspects of private trusts.

• The concept and advantages of a living trust.

• How to transfer wealth to your family members, including minor children, during your lifetime through a trust.

• How to draft, execute and register your Will.

• What you can bequeath through your Will — and what you can't.

• How to create a new HUF through a Will.

• Ready-to-use drafts of typical Wills.