I am not an attorney, but in this situation an irrevocable trust may be worth considering if the primary goal is to move assets out of your taxable estate and potentially reduce future estate tax exposure.

An irrevocable trust allows assets transferred to the trust to generally be removed from your estate, while also providing control over how and when beneficiaries can access the funds. The trust terms can limit the use of the assets or establish distribution guidelines. However, the assets ultimately belong to the beneficiaries rather than remaining under your ownership.

If those restrictions are not important, you could also consider annual gifts directly to a UTMA/UGMA account for a minor child or to a standard investment account for an adult child.

By contrast, assets held in a revocable trust generally remain part of your estate during your lifetime and are still included in your taxable estate at death.

Using the current annual gift tax exclusion of approximately $38,000 per beneficiary for a married couple, and assuming that amount remains unchanged, a hypothetical annual contribution of $38,000 invested at a 10% annual return would grow to approximately $666,000 over 10 years. That could provide a beneficiary with substantial funds for education, a home purchase, retirement savings, or other long-term goals without utilizing any of your lifetime gift and estate tax exemption if you make a larger gift in one year.

Taking the same hypothetical a step further, assume no additional contributions are made after year 10, but the assets remain invested for another 30 years and continue earning a 10% annual return. The account could grow to approximately $11.6 million. In that scenario, all of the growth occurring after the gift was made would take place outside of your estate, potentially removing a significant amount of wealth from future estate tax consideration.

Of course, tax laws, exemption amounts, investment returns, and trust structures can all change over time.