Creative Use of Independent Co-Trustees in Irrevocable Trusts

In developing an estate plan, practitioners regularly use irrevocable trusts (versus the typical revocable living trust) to assist clients in achieving tax and non-tax estate-planning goals.¹  Irrevocable trusts are used during life most often for estate tax planning to remove the fair market value (FMV) of the trust property from the grantor’s gross estate (GE) for federal estate tax (FET) purposes.