When my husband was forced to retire due to an illness, I was caught totally unprepared. We had owned a successful manufacturing business for many years, and we had some real estate holdings that we wanted to pass along to our children. I was worried about how we were going to manage on our current income. That's when a friend recommended Robert D. Hazen, CPA. "Before my husband passed, he established a charitable remainder trust that not only provided us with a comfortable income, but kept us from having to pay estate taxes. Without this plan in place, the family would have faced an insurmountable tax bill.