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[quote=Anonymous]My father has a relatively high net worth, but likely less than the recently raised lifetime gift tax exemption. He recently married his long time partner who is a women with little savings and two adult children. The children make enough to support their families, but not enough to support their mom. My sister dislikes his wife mainly because she sees her as a threat to "her" inheritance. My father has recently confided in me that his assets will be placed in a trust and I will be the trustee. The trust will be designed to support his wife and upon her death would pass to my sister and I. Nothing from the trust would be left to his wife's children or be used to support her children. The trust will also allow for some support of my sister and I if need be, although we both are fairly successful (although maybe not by DCUM standards in that we would both notice an inheritance of 5M). My father and his wife are in agreement with this plan.

My father does not want to simply say his wife gets 200k (or whatever) a year. Instead, he wants the trust to provide a certain standard of living for her similar to what they have now. There is no question that the trust can support that standard of living without touching the principal and in fact it will still grow. Details of the standard of living will apparently be in his will, but the idea is she will come to me when she needs money. In their minds, this would not be a daily thing, but there would be a monthly transfer for planned expenses and then if she needs a new car (or to pay for a large medical bill) she would let me know. As far as I am concerned, it is his money and he can spend it how he wants. Further, they have been together for a long time and she deserves to maintain her lifestyle. That said, however I manage the trust is going to cause a huge fight with my sister. For example, the fact that they have driven Mercedes for the past decade and replace them every couple of years, does not mean my sister would approve. I think it is a huge waste, but if that is what they want, I wouldn't want to deny my father's wishes. My sister of course would only want me to get the wife a used Kia.

I told him that I wasn't comfortable with the first time my sister finding out about his estate planning was after his death. He told me not to tell my sister but that he would make things clear in the will. What should be in the will in order to make this work? Do I tell my sister now even though he asked me not to?
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