Trustee March 2001 Volume XIII, Issue 1 .
Many people think of trusts as stodgy legal documents used primarily for leaving money to heirs.
But the truth is that trusts are much more than that. Trusts can be used for a broad variety of purposes, from charitable gifting to reducing your taxes. A trust is simply a formal agreement that assigns ownership of your assets to a trustee for the good of a designated beneficiary. Generally, clients have been limited to choosing between an individual and a bank trust department. Often, an individual is named as trustee without consideration of the expertise required in a trust administration.