Probate & Trust Law Section Conference Manual ... - Minnesota CLE

VIII.
Conclusion
Estate planners should continue to focus their efforts more carefully
on counseling their clients with regard to the use of both discretionary and pure
incentive trusts. If there is less of a need to emphasize transfer tax planning, it
may be more important to focus on serving more as a family counselor to help our
clients address their family relationships and to develop appropriate goals and
objectives. In many situations incentive trust provisions coupled with some trustee
discretion may better serve the client’s needs. Incentive trusts are very well suited
for those situations where a client may want to disinherit a child but not entirely.
However, incentive trust provisions need to be carefully drafted and thoroughly
reviewed by the client. Exculpatory provisions to protect trustees who act in good
faith are absolutely necessary. Schedule 1 contains several sample incentive trust
provisions.
10