How to Fill Out a Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLAT) Form

Filling out a Spousal Lifetime Access Trust involves five stages: collecting identifying information for everyone the trust names, drafting provisions that give the beneficiary spouse access without pulling the assets back into either spouse’s estate, executing the document under your state’s signing rules, re-titling assets into the trust’s name, and filing the tax paperwork that reports the gift. A signed SLAT that never gets funded protects nothing, so treat the document and the follow-through as a single project.

Information to Collect Before Drafting

Start with identifying details for every person the trust will name. The grantor supplies their full legal name, residential address, and Social Security number. The beneficiary spouse supplies the same, because the IRS tracks the movement of wealth between spouses. Errors in names or taxpayer identification numbers create problems during funding and can trigger scrutiny when tax returns are filed.

Then compile an inventory of the assets you plan to transfer. For brokerage accounts, list account numbers and the custodian. For real estate, include the legal description of each parcel as it appears on the current deed. For life insurance, note the policy number, issuer, and face value. Financial institutions will not re-title accounts without this level of specificity, so assembling the list before drafting saves considerable back-and-forth later.

Choosing a Trustee

The trustee manages trust assets and decides when and how to distribute them under the document’s terms. Naming the beneficiary spouse as trustee is tempting but risky. If the beneficiary spouse serves as trustee and holds distribution power broader than a strict ascertainable standard — an absolute discretion clause, for example — the IRS treats that authority as a general power of appointment. Under federal law, a general power of appointment pulls the trust assets into the beneficiary spouse’s gross estate, defeating the purpose of the SLAT.¹

An independent trustee, meaning someone who is neither the grantor nor a beneficiary, avoids that problem and has the widest discretion to make distributions. Name at least one successor trustee, and preferably two, to step in if the original trustee dies, becomes incapacitated, or resigns. Write each successor’s full legal name and contact information into the document. Corporate trustees such as trust companies or bank trust departments are common choices for successor roles because they do not carry the mortality risk of individual trustees.

Provisions the Document Must Contain

The trust’s language has to accomplish several things at once: give the beneficiary spouse meaningful access, keep the assets out of both spouses’ taxable estates, and set a clear framework for what happens to the wealth after both spouses are gone. Omitting or botching any of the provisions below can collapse the tax benefits entirely.

The HEMS Distribution Standard

The most protective way to structure distributions is to limit them to the beneficiary spouse’s health, education, maintenance, and support, known as the HEMS standard. This language comes directly from the Internal Revenue Code, which provides that a power to consume or invade trust property is not treated as a general power of appointment when it is limited by an ascertainable standard relating to those four categories.¹ HEMS language makes the beneficiary spouse’s access broad enough to cover real financial needs but narrow enough to keep the IRS from treating the assets as part of the spouse’s estate.

If you want the trustee to have wider discretion than HEMS allows, such as distributions for “comfort” or “happiness,” the trust needs an independent trustee rather than the beneficiary spouse to hold that broader power. Mixing absolute discretion with a beneficiary-trustee arrangement is the fastest way to undo the SLAT’s estate tax protection.

The Lifetime Access Clause

The lifetime access clause is what makes a SLAT a SLAT. It grants the beneficiary spouse the right to receive income or principal from the trust during the grantor’s lifetime and typically for the rest of the beneficiary spouse’s own life. Without this clause, the spouse has no legal right to request financial support from the trust, and the document is just an ordinary irrevocable trust.

The drafting must confirm the beneficiary spouse’s access while making clear that the grantor retains no direct right to the trust’s income or assets. If the IRS can argue the grantor kept the “possession or enjoyment” of the transferred property, the entire trust gets pulled back into the grantor’s estate under Section 2036.²

Crummey Withdrawal Rights

A gift to an irrevocable trust is ordinarily a gift of a “future interest,” which does not qualify for the annual gift tax exclusion.³ Crummey withdrawal provisions fix this by giving each beneficiary a temporary right to withdraw their share of any contribution shortly after it is made. The withdrawal window is typically at least 30 days, and the trust document must require written notice to each beneficiary whenever a contribution occurs. Beneficiaries almost never actually withdraw the funds. The point is to convert future-interest gifts into present-interest gifts so the annual exclusion applies.

For 2026, the annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient.⁴ If the trust names the beneficiary spouse and two children as Crummey beneficiaries, the grantor can contribute up to $57,000 annually without touching their lifetime exemption. Include Crummey provisions only if annual-exclusion gifts are part of the funding strategy; transfers that will simply be reported against the lifetime exemption on Form 709 do not need them.

Limited Power of Appointment

A limited or “special” power of appointment gives the beneficiary spouse some say over where the trust assets go after the spouse dies. The beneficiary spouse might redirect assets among descendants or trusts for descendants, but cannot direct assets to themselves, their own estate, or their creditors. That limitation is what keeps it from being a general power, which would cause estate inclusion.¹ Including a limited power of appointment adds flexibility to adapt to changing family circumstances without rewriting the trust.

Remainder Beneficiaries

The document must spell out what happens to the assets after the beneficiary spouse dies. The most common approach names the couple’s children as remainder beneficiaries. The grantor can direct assets to pass outright or to continue in further trust for the children’s benefit. The second option keeps the wealth protected from the children’s creditors and potential divorces. If the beneficiary spouse holds a limited power of appointment, the default remainder provisions serve as a backstop in case the spouse never exercises that power.

Structuring to Survive IRS Scrutiny

The SLAT’s tax benefits depend on the IRS accepting that the grantor genuinely gave up ownership and control. Three doctrines give the IRS tools to challenge trusts that look like tax avoidance rather than real transfers of wealth, and each has a drafting or sequencing fix.

Reciprocal Trust Doctrine

When both spouses each create a SLAT for the other to double the amount sheltered from estate tax, the IRS may invoke the reciprocal trust doctrine. If the two trusts are essentially mirror images, the IRS can “uncross” them and treat each grantor as the beneficiary of their own trust, pulling the assets back into each grantor’s taxable estate under Section 2036.² Make the two SLATs differ in meaningful ways: different trustees, different assets, different distribution standards, and different timing. Signing one trust in January and the other in September is more defensible than signing both in the same week.

Step Transaction Doctrine

The step transaction doctrine lets the IRS collapse a series of technically separate steps into a single transaction. In SLAT planning, this often arises when one spouse gifts assets to the other, who then immediately funds a SLAT. The IRS may argue that the gift and the trust funding were really one planned transfer from the grantor to a trust for their own benefit. The safer approach separates these steps across calendar years, so each has independent economic significance.

Implied Understanding Risk

Even without those doctrines, the IRS can argue that an implied understanding existed if the grantor transferred so much wealth into the SLAT that the grantor could not realistically maintain their lifestyle without accessing trust funds. The IRS’s position in that scenario is that the grantor must have expected ready access, which means the grantor effectively retained enjoyment of the property and triggered estate inclusion.² Keep enough assets outside the trust to cover the grantor’s own expenses without relying on the beneficiary spouse to funnel distributions back.

Signing the Document

Execution has to satisfy state law for the trust to be valid. Both the grantor and the trustee sign in the presence of a notary public, who verifies their identities and applies an official seal and signature to the acknowledgment page. This notarization creates a self-proving record that the parties entered the agreement voluntarily and were properly identified.

Many states also require two disinterested witnesses, meaning people who are not beneficiaries and have no financial stake in the trust assets. The witnesses sign after the grantor and trustee, providing independent verification that the signers appeared competent and were not under duress. All parties should initial each page of the agreement to prevent claims that pages were swapped or altered after execution.

Keep the executed original in a secure location such as a fireproof safe or a safe deposit box. Some practitioners sign multiple originals so the grantor, the trustee, and the drafting attorney each hold one. Once the last signature is in place and the notary has completed the acknowledgment, the document is a legally binding instrument, but it does nothing until it is funded.

Funding the Trust

Funding means re-titling assets from the grantor’s individual name to the trust’s name, and it has to happen for each type of asset separately.

Real estate. Prepare and record a new deed with the county recorder’s office where the property is located, showing the trust as the new owner. Recording fees vary by county but are generally modest.
Bank and brokerage accounts. The financial institution will typically require a certificate of trust, a condensed summary that identifies the trust, the trustee, and the trustee’s powers without disclosing sensitive information about beneficiaries or distribution terms. Some institutions accept the full trust document instead.
Life insurance. Change the policy’s owner and usually the beneficiary designation to the trust by filing paperwork with the insurance company. If the grantor dies within three years of transferring a life insurance policy, the policy proceeds may still be included in the grantor’s estate.

Assets that are never formally re-titled remain in the grantor’s personal estate regardless of what the trust document says. This is where many SLATs fail in practice: the document gets signed, everyone feels accomplished, and the follow-through never happens.

Tax Filings After Signing

Get an EIN for the Trust

The trustee applies for an Employer Identification Number from the IRS, which functions as the trust’s taxpayer ID and is required for opening accounts and filing returns. The fastest route is the IRS online application, which issues the EIN immediately upon approval. The applicant needs the trust’s entity type and the Social Security number of the responsible party, typically the trustee.⁵

File Form 709

The grantor must file IRS Form 709, the United States Gift (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return, to report the transfer of assets into the SLAT.⁶ The return is due by April 15 of the year following the gift. If the grantor also files a personal income tax extension, the Form 709 deadline extends automatically to October 15. Reporting the gift lets the grantor apply their lifetime exemption to the transfer, preventing immediate gift tax.

If the SLAT is designed to benefit grandchildren or later generations, allocate the grantor’s generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exemption to the trust on the same Form 709 filing. A timely allocation keeps the trust assets from facing a second layer of tax when they eventually pass to grandchildren. Missing or late allocation can result in costly GST exposure later.

Grantor Trust Income Tax Treatment

SLATs are typically structured as grantor trusts for income tax purposes, meaning the grantor personally pays income tax on all earnings generated by the trust’s assets. The trust itself does not file a separate income tax return or pay its own taxes. This is actually a benefit: the grantor’s payment of the trust’s income taxes is not treated as an additional gift, so the trust’s assets grow without being diminished by tax payments. Over time, that tax-free compounding inside the trust can substantially increase the wealth passing to the next generation.

Naming the Spouse and Planning for What Could Go Wrong

Divorce and the Floating Spouse Clause

A standard SLAT names the beneficiary spouse by legal name. If the couple divorces, the former spouse typically remains a named beneficiary unless the trust document says otherwise. A “floating spouse” provision defines the beneficiary not by name but as “the person to whom the grantor is currently married.” After a divorce, the former spouse no longer fits that definition and automatically loses beneficiary status.

The trade-off matters: after a divorce, a grantor trust SLAT still imposes income tax liability on the grantor even though the grantor no longer has a beneficiary spouse providing indirect access to the funds. The grantor ends up paying taxes on trust income with no household benefit in return. The floating spouse clause can only be added while drafting, not after a divorce is underway.

If the Beneficiary Spouse Dies First

If the beneficiary spouse predeceases the grantor, the grantor’s indirect access to the trust assets ends. The assets typically pass to the remainder beneficiaries, usually the couple’s children, either outright or in continuing trust. The grantor cannot be added as a beneficiary after the spouse’s death without pulling the assets back into the grantor’s taxable estate. This is arguably the single biggest risk in SLAT planning, and there is no clean fix. Some grantors mitigate the exposure by keeping enough assets outside the trust to sustain themselves independently if the beneficiary spouse dies unexpectedly. Life insurance on the beneficiary spouse is another common hedge, providing the grantor with replacement liquidity.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2041 – Powers of Appointment
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 US Code 2036 – Transfers With Retained Life Estate
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 US Code 2503 – Taxable Gifts
4
Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions on Gift Taxes
5
Internal Revenue Service. Get an Employer Identification Number
6
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 709, United States Gift (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return