America’s Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies Showcase - Flipbook - Page 21
2026 ADVISOR-FRIENDLY TRUST COMPANIES
FAMILIES NO
LONGER FACE A
HARD DEADLINE
THAT MIGHT FORCE
RUSHED DECISIONS
ABOUT GIFTING
LARGE PORTIONS
OF THEIR WEALTH.
with real reciprocity. They provide
marketing support, educational
materials, and thoughtful introductions
within their advisor networks. They
call when they identify a planning
opportunity in a client’s situation rather
than waiting to be asked. They treat
the advisor’s business interests as
something worth actively protecting
rather than merely acknowledging in a
sales presentation.
That mutual investment is what the
advisor-friendly model, at its best,
actually means. It is not a legal structure
or a fee schedule. It is a commitment
between two professionals who have
each decided that working together
produces better outcomes for the
families they both serve than competing
for the same relationship ever could.
The families at the center of this work,
the ones whose wealth was built
over lifetimes and whose legacies are
meant to outlast them, deserve exactly
that level of commitment from every
professional in the room.
The advisors and trust companies that
understand this most deeply are the
ones this guide was written to celebrate.
They are the future of the industry, and
they are already here.
WHERE WE GO FROM HERE
For most of the past decade, estate
planning for high-net-worth families
operated under a specific kind of
pressure. The elevated exemptions
introduced by the 2017 Tax Cuts and
Jobs Act were always understood to
be temporary, and as the 2025 sunset
approached, the planning conversation
increasingly resembled a countdown.
Act now or lose the opportunity. Use
the exemption while you have it. The
urgency was real, and it produced real
action: accelerated gifting programs,
trust structures executed ahead of
schedule, and charitable strategies
timed to maximize the window before
the rules changed.
That window didn’t close. It widened.
ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA),
signed into law on July 4, 2025,
resolved the sunset uncertainty by
making permanent changes to the
federal estate and gift tax exemptions
that were previously scheduled to
expire. The federal estate and gift tax
exemption rises to $15 million per
individual beginning January 1, 2026,
up from $13.99 million in 2025, with
the amount indexed for inflation going
forward. For married couples, the
combined exemption reaches $30
million. The top estate tax rate of 40%
on amounts exceeding the exemption
remains unchanged.
The practical effect on planning is
significant. Families no longer face a
hard deadline that might force rushed
decisions about gifting large portions
of their wealth. Instead, they have time
and breathing room to align estate and
gift tax strategies with their long-term
goals and values. The “use it or lose
it” dynamic that dominated planning
conversations for years has been
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replaced by genuine strategic flexibility.
That is a meaningful improvement in
the quality of planning that advisors can
now deliver.
But the legislation did more than raise
the exemption. It reshaped several
related planning dimensions that
advisors need to understand fully.
The annual gift tax exclusion rose to
$19,000 per recipient in 2025, allowing
more to move out of taxable estates
each year without filing a gift tax return
or touching the lifetime exemption.
For families with multiple children and
grandchildren, the cumulative effect of
consistent annual gifting compounds
meaningfully over time.
Charitable giving strategy also shifted.
Starting in 2026, charitable deductions
for itemizers include a floor of 0.5% of
adjusted gross income, and the value
of itemized deductions is capped at 35
cents on the dollar for taxpayers in the
top bracket. This means large charitable
gifts made in 2025 may have been more
tax-advantageous than those deferred
to later years. For clients with significant
philanthropic intentions, the mechanics
of timing now matter more than they did
before. Donor-advised funds, charitable
remainder trusts, and bunching
strategies have become the most
efficient vehicles for managing charitable
exposure under the new framework.
The SALT deduction also shifted in
ways that affect high-income clients
with income-producing portfolios. The
cap increases to $40,000 in 2025,
rising incrementally through 2029
before reverting to $10,000 in 2030.
For clients in high-tax jurisdictions who
had structured around the original
cap, the temporary expansion reopens
planning conversations that had
effectively been closed.
