The Wall Street Journal's Rachel Louise Ensign has put a name to what many families are already doing. The great wealth transfer may be on hold because people are living longer, but the great wealth trickle is well under way: older Americans, who hold about $110 trillion, are paying for preschool, rent, down payments, tuition and cars now, while they can watch the impact. One couple estimated $700,000 given to six children and fifteen grandchildren.
That generosity is wonderful, and usually unstructured. Once the giving becomes regular, substantial or unequal, writing checks stops being the smartest way to do it. The 2026 annual exclusion is $19,000 per recipient, tuition and medical bills paid directly do not count against it, and everything above the line uses part of the $15 million exemption that few families track. Cash handed to a child is exposed to that child's creditors and divorce; the same money in a well drafted trust generally is not. Grantor trusts for appreciating assets, an insurance trust to equalize among children, charitable trusts, special needs trusts and nongrantor trusts each turn generosity into strategy. A gift solves today. A trust can solve today and protect tomorrow.
The full piece is at turnipseed.law.
