The Washington Report: – Wealth Transfer Edition
“Taxpayers should exercise caution in implementing ING trusts, particularly in light of California’s new law, which is effective retroactively. While the ING trust remains a viable wealth preservation strategy in many states, it is unclear how long this will continue. Taxpayers who implement this strategy are well advised to craft an exit strategy as well.”
Click here to read the full report.
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Robert W. Finnegan has an excellent article in the current issue of Trusts & Estates (April, 2023) entitled, “The GRAT Enhancement Strategy.”
From the article:
Finnegan provides a robust and detailed Case Study illustrating the benefits of this planning and concludes with “The GRAT enhancement strategy is a powerful wealth transfer tool in and of itself. It’s applicable to GRATs, staged distribution trusts and any trust in which the assets have been removed from the clients’ estates but will be taxed in the children’s estates. Clients may be more receptive to additional planning if they can minimize their involvement and expenses and use assets that have already been transferred.”
I highly recommend this article for your review and consideration.
The GRAT Enhancement Strategy – Trust & Estates – 3.20.23
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The Washington Report: Business Uses Edition
“A rabbi trust is a vehicle that provides for such informal funding without running afoul of tax or ERISA compliance issues resulting from “funded” NQDC plan benefits. This article addresses key questions to consider when adopting a rabbi trust, including (i) whether the rabbi trust should be irrevocable; (ii) even if irrevocable, when can assets revert to the employer; (iii) should the rabbi trust include enhanced protections upon the employer’s change in control; (iv) what kind of investments should the rabbi trust hold and what kind of control over those investments should the employer retain; and (v) can the rabbi trust hold employer stock?”
Click here to read the full report.
View PostMany ultra-high net worth clients used all of their available gift/estate and GST exemptions in 2020 or 2021. For an individual, the exemption increased by $120,000 in 2021, $360,000 in 2022 and is estimated to increase by $860,000 in in 2023. We can make assumptions for the increases in 2024 and 2025. What would it look like if we used the increases to fund additional life insurance.
Click here to find out.
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“The IRS, clearly interested in intergenerational private split-dollar, attempted to secure a third victory. After Morrissette and Cahill, it looked like intergenerational split-dollar was trending the way of the dinosaurs. Then in Estate of Marion Levine, the Tax Court not only resurrected intergenerational split-dollar life insurance planning, but it also offered a roadmap for successfully structuring traditional private split-dollar plans as well.”
Click here to see the full report.
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“The “step transaction” doctrine is alive and well. In the foot-race to beat potential tax law changes, families often miss the forest from the trees. The economic realities and entity formalities must be respected in the execution of a gift transaction….On November 10, 2021, the Tax Court rendered its decision in the case of Smaldino v. Commissioner, which involved a purported gift of LLC interests by Mr. Smaldino to his wife, followed by a purported gift of the same LLC interests, the very next day, from Mrs. Smaldino to a dynasty trust for the sole benefit of Mr. Smaldino’s children from a prior marriage. The Court found a series of ignored formalities, and that as a practical matter there was never a time when Mrs. Smaldino would have been able to effectively exercise any ownership rights with respect to the LLC interests “given” to her. The Court held that Mr. Smaldino never effectively transferred any LLC interest to Mrs. Smaldino, and consequently the dynasty trust received its entire LLC interest from Mr. Smaldino, creating a taxable event.”
To read the full report, click here.
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2021 was a strange and challenging year in the estate and tax planning field, particularly life insurance….In the rush to address and mitigate potential consequences before they came into existence, practitioners, advisors, and clients all made decisions and took actions which, in retrospect, may not have been most advisable, were just plain mistakes, or failed to plan for the problems that these actions had potential to cause in the future, regardless of whether any of the concerning factors came to fruition. This article describes many of these “mistakes” which occurred due to rushed planning and may serve as a warning if we are (and we will be) faced with similar situations in the future.
To see the full report, click here.
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There is an adage in the medical field that applies to planning for insurance trusts right now, namely: “First do no harm”. What is particularly difficult for estate and tax practitioners today is they are being asked to plan for previously proposed legislation that, while currently out of the legislative debate, might resurface and pass in the future. Given this situation, what can we do to position our clients so that we are helping them in the event that the now shelved legislation reenters the debate and is passed, while simultaneously not hurting them if the laws do not change?
To read the full report, click here.
View PostWhat You Know: We Just Dodged the Defective Grantor Trust Bullet (or did we?)
What You May Not Know: It Is Still Important to Consider Hedging Re-Introduction of DGT Provisions
Please click here to see three planning/drafting scenarios to consider.
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BREAKING NEWS from Finseca:
This morning, President Biden delayed his trip to see the Pope to meet with Congressional Democrats about moving forward on the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill (BIF) and on the reconciliation bill (Build Back Better plan, or BBB). In concert with that meeting, the White House released two documents (below) explaining the current state of play on the reconciliation package.
We view this as an offer, not a conclusion. These documents are focused on the big picture items. They leave out many important details. There are other items not covered here that key Democrats have said must be addressed in a final deal (i.e. SALT).
Here are the things we are watching closely:
Again, this is a very fluid situation. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions.
Armstrong Robinson
Chief Advocacy Officer, Finseca