Helping a client benefit from an intentionally defective grantor trust
These trusts can be advantageous to wealthier clients, but their future use in estate planning is threatened by current legislative proposals.
Types of Trusts
The grantor trust rules: An exploited mismatch
This article discusses the history of the grantor trust rules, how they are exploited to avoid taxes, and ways the rules might be reformed to prevent them from being used for tax avoidance.
Recent developments in estate planning: Part 1
This first part of this annual update focuses on trust and gift tax issues.
Planning with revocable trusts after the grantor’s death
This article focuses on the key tax and reporting areas applicable to revocable trusts and the associated planning and pitfalls that arise at the grantor’s death.
Revocable trusts and the grantor’s death: Planning and pitfalls
This article focuses on the key tax and reporting areas applicable to revocable trusts and the associated planning and pitfalls that arise at the grantor’s death.
Recent developments in estate planning: Part 1
This first part of the annual update covers trust and gift tax issues, including regulations explaining deductions permitted for trusts and estates after the TCJA eliminated miscellaneous itemized deductions for individuals.
Inherited IRA strategies after the SECURE Act
This article discusses alternatives to the stretch IRA.
Seize the increased basic exclusion amount
Taxpayers can obtain unique benefits when it comes to gift and estate tax planning by using trusts and taking advantage of applicable valuation conventions.
A shakeup in trust taxation: Kaestner and Paula Trust
This item discusses the implications of the Court’s ruling in Kaestner and compares the issues at hand in Paula Trust.
Recent developments in estate planning: Part 1
This article is the first of two parts of an annual update on developments in trust, estate, and gift taxation. Part 1 discusses developments affecting trusts and the generation-skipping transfer tax, as well as inflation adjustments.
Trust income: The Supreme Court’s narrow opinion on state nexus
The U.S. Supreme Court recently addressed the circumstances in which a state may levy income tax on a trust that has only minimal connection to the state.
Trust planning opportunities available with swap powers
The inclusion of swap powers is a common method of qualifying a trust as a grantor trust for income tax purposes while still removing assets from the grantor’s taxable estate.
Unexpected tax bills for simple trusts after tax reform
Post-TCJA, expenses that are miscellaneous itemized deductions are taken into account in computing trust accounting income but are now nondeductible in computing taxable income and distributable net income for the trust.
Using trusts to shift income to children
Use of a Sec. 2503(c) or minor’s trust allows for transfers of property (and income shifting) to children, while parents maintain control of the property at least until the child reaches age 21.
Supreme Court holds North Carolina cannot tax trust
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision holding that North Carolina’s attempt to tax a trust based solely on the residence of a beneficiary violates the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The impact of tax reform on DNI, and a reason to revisit trust accounting income
It is important to note the role trust accounting income plays when preparing the annual income tax return for the trust, a role that has become more prominent since the enactment of the TCJA.
Minimizing federal income tax on trusts under the TCJA
The disparate tax treatment between trusts and individuals has grown even more pronounced than it was before the TCJA was enacted.
Can a state tax a trust based on the beneficiary’s residency?
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that will decide whether states can tax trusts based solely on the fact that a trust beneficiary lives in the state.
Claiming the QBI deduction for trusts
The enactment of Sec. 199A provides one more reason to advise clients to create separate trusts for individual beneficiaries instead of a single trust.
Recent developments in estate planning: Part 2
This article is the second of two parts of an annual update on developments in trust, estate, and gift taxation. It covers generation-skipping transfer tax and trust tax developments, as well as inflation adjustments for 2018.
