Trusts and Wills are two ways of legally distributing your wealth to your intended successors or other beneficiaries. Intelligently planned, these two methods can also help you save tax for yourself and your successors.

While Wills are better known, tax and succession planning through private or family trusts is also a tried and tested way of transferring assets and creating income for your successors, including unborn persons. In fact, private trusts have several great advantages over a Will. While a Will is often challenged in the courts — and the resultant dispute can take years to be settled — a properly created trust can help you pre-empt any such family strife. Secondly, by creating the right trust you can pass on your wealth even during your lifetime.

This book offers expert guidance on how to bequeath your wealth as you want, whether by means of trusts or through a valid Will, in a tax-efficient manner:

• The various types of private and family trusts you can set up.

• Principles and procedure for creating a valid private trust.

• Advantages and tax planning aspects of private trusts.

• The concept and advantages of a living trust.

• How to transfer wealth to your family members, including minor children, during your lifetime through a trust.

• How to draft, execute and register your Will.

• What you can bequeath through your Will — and what you can't.

• How to create a new HUF through a Will.

• Ready-to-use drafts of typical Wills.

Ram Niwas Lakhotia is a well-known authority on taxation in the country. He is a regular writer and editor of several books on Income-tax, Vegetarianism and also Humour. His various books have seen over 500 editions so far. He regularly writes for leading newspapers. He had a brilliant academic career. He stood First Class First in both the Degree and Post-Graduate Examinations in Commerce. He joined the Indian Revenue Service and stood First in the whole of India in the I.T.O’s Examination.

As the founder Chairman of Rajasthani Academy, New Delhi he is active in social service and cultural activities. Every year he awards “Lakhotia Puraskar” of Rs. 1 lakh, declared by the Central Government as a National Award for the best writer in Rajasthani language. He is past District Governor of Lions Clubs International. As the President of Vegetarian Congress of Delhi he is spreading Vegetarianism for Health and Happiness. He is Trustee of several Charitable Trusts. He has addressed over 5,000 seminars & lecture meetings in India and abroad and conducted a very popular show “Tax Doctor” of Zee Business.