Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Maine

The question is a bit like asking my opinion as to the diferences between an apple and and orange. They are both round and edible fruit, but very different.

So a basic answer is that a revocable living trust is used by someone who wants to control disposition of assets but may change their mind during life, therefore- revocable. It is not for estate tax planning purposes due to its revocable nature.

A charitable trust is not really a legal planning term, but I guess you may mean a charitable remainder trust. That is not revocable once created and does create a tax benefit. A charity needs to accept the property, usually highly appreciated stock. Income is still paid back during life to the grantor of the trust and the charity gets the property without capital gain. Often the estate plan will be for this income to fund life insurance which will, in turn, create more of an asset at death that is not part of the taxable estate.

Since the information can get very specific please call me for more if you would like, as one of my partners has significant experience in this type of planning.