ACTEC Trust & Estate Talk Useful but Overlooked Trusts: A Planner's Guide to When and How to Use Them
Jan 26, 2026
Wendy Goff, a trust and estate practitioner, walks through specialized, often overlooked trusts and when they fit a plan. She covers HEETs for multi‑generation education and charity planning. She explains alimony/maintenance trusts, voting trusts for family business governance, blind trusts for executives, and emerging crypto and digital‑asset trust ideas.
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Trusts Separate Legal And Beneficial Title
- A trust requires separation of legal and beneficial title with a trustee holding legal title for beneficiaries.
- Treating trusts as independent legal entities is a growing modern trend noted by Wendy Goff.
When To Use A HEAT/HEET
- Use a Health and Education Exclusion Trust (HEET) when clients exhaust their GST exemption but want multi‑generational medical and education support.
- Grant the trustee broad discretion for meaningful annual charitable distributions to avoid the separate share rule and GST exposure.
Qualified Education Transfers Are Narrow
- Qualified education transfers only include tuition paid directly to an educational institution for a skip person.
- Room, board, fees, and many other education expenses don't qualify and may trigger GST tax.