A practical 2026 guide to the Medicaid Asset Protection Trust: what a MAPT is, the five-year look-back and transfer penalty, income-only design, keeping the right to live in your home, preserving step-up in basis, and how a MAPT compares with gifting, an ILIT, and a Medicaid-compliant annuity.
A practical guide to the federal estate and gift tax exemption sunset: how the TCJA-doubled unified exemption is scheduled to roughly halve, why 2025 to 2026 is a use-it-or-lose-it gifting window, how the lifetime exemption, annual exclusion, portability, and GST exemption interact, IRS anti-clawback guidance, and planning tools like SLATs, irrevocable trusts, and valuation discounts.
A SLAT lets one spouse gift assets into an irrevocable trust for the other spouse, using the historically high lifetime gift and estate tax exemption before it drops — while keeping indirect access to the money. This 2026 guide explains how a SLAT works, the exemption sunset, the reciprocal trust doctrine, divorce and death risk, grantor-trust income tax, and how it compares to an ILIT, GRAT, and bypass trust.