Step by Step Approach To Open a Trust Fund

by William D. Lugar

           Seeing as how I have been writing articles about trust fund accounts, and how I speak highly of them or in favor of them, I figured especially since not everyone of us is made of money I could explain on how I opened my trust fund and the step by step process I went through, especially since not everyone of us is made of money, I know I am not, and I know that there are lots of loop holes and obstacles for people to get these. Number one step is what I did first.

           You go either to an attorney if you have the money which I myself did not. I would recommend if you are able, to start on a site such as Legal Zoom, which is where I did mine. I am charged about 39.95 a month now because of it, so though it may not be free, or ideal, that’s a lot less money than 1,000 to even 5,000 starting up with a trust. The next step I did was I went on Legal Zoom, titled the Trust the way I deemed necessary, had to give personal information, I then named the beneficiaries, made the trust revocable, and saved the trust on a document.

           The next step was I went to the irs.gov to get me an EIN/TIN number. An E.I.N. or T.I.N. number is an employee identification number or a tax identification number and it has to be different than your social security number in order to open any estate account whether it be a trust, or an estate for a passed relative, but in essential needs the EIN/TIN number is the social security number of a trust, or estate. This was actually pretty much no cost whatsoever, and I just want to make this also clear an EIN/TIN isn’t just for trust accounts and estates. I also want to make it clear that though you are not opening a business, a “trust fund” is treated like any business account a bank would open just for the record. 

I also just wanted to give you some more information, here that I didn’t do but you could do is open the trust from irs.gov, you are able to do so there, the price I am unsure of just for your information. So now that you have gotten your trust document from either IRS, legal zoom, any estate planning website, or any estate planning attorney what are the next steps? When all is said and done, you then need to go to the bank, and or a notary, though banks normally have a notary to witness you sign and date the document.

The banker then with the information of the trust document, the EIN number, and then after the application was completed I had a revocable living trust account. I do want to forewarn any of you if you open a trust fund there is some taxation on having one, depending on the amount in the trust, if you happen to have less than 100 dollars, the tax percent is 10 percent, and to 12,000+ the tax rate is a whopping 37 percent. Keep in mind this is to protect your assets from going through probate after you pass away and is titled in the name of the trust.