Not while it’s fully revocable, you don’t. While your living revocable trust remains fully revocable, everything in the trust is yours – real property in the name of a trustee, trust bank accounts, shares of stock held by a trustee, etc. Because you retain full control of the assets, the income from trust property is yours and should be reflected on your own individual or joint tax return.

For the same reason, these assets remain reachable by creditors.

On the other hand, if the trust was created as an irrevocable trust, or once the revocable trust becomes either partially or fully irrevocable (e.g., on the death of either settlor in an AB trust) a separate tax return will need to be filed and a separate taxpayer id number will need to be obtained from the Internal Revenue Service. Just go to www.irs.gov and find form SS-4!

If you have more specific questions, contact your experienced CPA or the Law Office of Daniel K. Printz.