“Under the old tax laws, each spouse had an estate tax exemption, but typically, the first spouse to die didn’t use his or her exemption. That’s because most spouses left everything to the survivor and bequests to a surviving spouse aren’t subject to estate tax. But the surviving spouse then owned all the couple’s assets; estate tax would be owed when the second spouse died. The portability provision (which became effective in 2011) lets the surviving spouse use any part of the total exemption — $10.24 million for deaths in 2012 — that isn’t used by the first spouse to die. So for most couples, there’s no need for an AB trust.”
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/tax-saving-ab-trusts-29621.html
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