A Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLAT) is an irrevocable trust utilized for transferring wealth outside of an estate. It is a grantor type trust where one spouse makes a gift into a trust to benefit the other spouse (and potentially other family members) while removing the assets from their combined estates. A SLAT is an estate planning strategy that can address conflicting objectives, such as providing access to assets while keeping them out of the taxable estate. A SLAT can be an effective tool for multi-generational planning and can be structured as a dynasty trust, which is a long-term trust created to pass wealth from generation to generation without incurring transfer taxes, such as estate and gift taxes or generation-skipping transfer tax.
Here are some key features of a SLAT:
- A SLAT is an irrevocable trust.
- It is created by one spouse (the "donor" spouse) gifting property to an irrevocable trust for the benefit of the other spouse ("non-donor" spouse) .
- A SLAT can be designed to benefit the next generation only or be structured as a dynasty trust[[1]](https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/wealth-management/insights/slat-estat...
