The purpose of the traditional A/B Trust was to allow a married person to structure their estate plan so that when a married person dies, no federal estate tax was required to be paid within nine months of the date that the married person passed away.
While A/B Trusts were useful in the past to allow a surviving spouse to use a deceased spouse's unused portion of federal estate tax exemption, they are no longer in regular use due to federal "portability," which allows this without the administrative burden of an A/B Trust.
MyAdvocate trusts are not A/B Trusts; however, when a MyAdvocate customer sets up their will or living trust, or if they restate their living trust, they automatically take advantage of this federal estate tax marital deduction (which provides that no federal estate tax is required to be paid upon the death of the first spouse) so long as they choose the “outright to spouse” or “in trust for spouse” and with surviving spouse to receive the income for life.