An irrevocable trust is a trust that cannot be amended or terminated (with limited exceptions) by the Settlor. The Settlor also gives up control of the assets in the irrevocable trust. A trustee is named who has an “arms length” relationship to the Settor. In other words, the trustee must be someone deemed not to be under the control of the Settlor. Because the Settlor has no control over the assets in an irrevocable trust, the assets in the trust are considered to be outside the Settlor’s estate. Therefore, they are not counted as part of the estate when calculating state and federal estate taxes.
