Terri Schiavo.

Many of us remember the tragic circumstances surrounding her life and eventual passing.

Her circumstances created both dramatic political and legal battles, generated intense media coverage, several high court (including the US Supreme Court) reviews and decisions, and extensive involvement by politicians and interest groups. Do you remember?

Terri fell ill in 1990. Within three years, she was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). All of her personal physicians agreed that she was in a PVS and had virtually no chance of recovery.

There will be some major changes in tax planning for Registered Domestic Partners (RDP’s) in California this year.

A recent Chief Counsel Advisory (CCA 2010210) issued by the Office of Chief Counsel, Internal Revenue Service, recognizes California as a community property state, and now accepts its treatment of earned income as community property for Registered Domestic Partners. As with opposite sex married couples, RDPs have an automatic right to one-half of each other’s earned income.

These are exciting times for those of us in the LGBT community. More and more of the legal inequities we suffer are being corrected. Some of the hurdles we’ve had to jump in order to share meaningful lives with our partners
are being removed.

We still have a long way to go to reach true equality, but the past year or two have seen progress on several fronts.

In some of my past articles, we talked about how estate planning is important for everyone - from people of the most modest means to those with great wealth. Whatever your assets, you can control them now, in life, and later, after death, with careful planning. You can assure that your partner, spouse or family (even pets!) are protected to the best of your ability when you use the right estate planning tools.

Trusts are the backbone of most estate plans, so let’s review some of the most common types of trusts, and see how they work: