Plus Archive
Calling for Clarity On NRAs' Partnership Situs
There are various theories proposed for determining situs of partnership interests for U.S. federal estate tax purposes when those interests are held...
Des Americains en France
Thomas Jefferson did it in the 1790s. Ernest Hemingway did it and wrote about it in the 1920s. Today, as well, many Americans move to France to live....
Jenkens & Gilchrist: Another Shoe to Drop?
When Jenkens & Gilchrist, the 56-year-old national law firm based in Dallas, closed its doors for good in March of 2007, it also seemed to mark the end...
Planning for Clients With Multiple Sclerosis
About eight months ago, my wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). We immediately started to learn everything we could about the disease, so...
New Customers For Alternative Investments
A recent ruling by the Securities and Exchange Commission has made it easier for private foundations organized as not-for-profit corporations with at...
Practice Professionally
A lot of advisors, even the most reputable, groan when the word is uttered. Let's talk ethics, is like being told, Let's eat steamed broccoli. Sure, it's...
Lawyers' Group Protests The Appraiser Penalties
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA)1 imposes new penalties on appraisers that are deemed to have made substantial or gross valuation misstatements....
NEW U.S.-FRENCH TREATY PROTOCOLS
Carolyn DeVore of Pullman & Comley, LLC, in Westport, Conn., reports: The United States and France ratified significant protocols to their income tax...
Keep Up With Your Clients
Baby boomers are hunkering down for retirement. They are putting computer to spreadsheet, as it were, and running asset and cash flow projections, with...
Cold Snap for DAFs
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA), which so radically redefined the rules for supporting organizations, also transformed the rules for donor-advised...
Beneficiary-Controlled Trusts Can Lose Asset Protection
Advisors promote trusts as an indispensable component of the estate plan. We tout the importance of trusts for credit shelter and generation-skipping...
Patenting Tax Strategies
If you were listening on May 20, 2003, you might have heard the collective gasp of tax practitioners across the country. On that day, the United States...
Alternate Uses For Self-Settled Trusts
Many advisors assume that domestic asset protection trusts (DAPTs) self-settled trusts established in the United States typically to protect trust assets...
Sad Reward
May you never have to experience the legal and banking problems, not to the mention the gut-wrench, associated with posting a reward to help find a missing...
Foreign Reporting: Get It Right
As estate planners, we love helping people, and as attorneys, we need to bill hours. So when we can help people and bill hours at the same time, you'd...
SPLIT-DOLLAR OPPORTUNITIES
Although the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have significantly diminished its income tax advantages, split-dollar insurance can...
Throw Mama From the Train
It just got harder to be old and anything short of wealthy. Chapter 2 of the new Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) focuses exclusively on long-term...
It Couldn't Hurt
Many estate planners these days see the estate planning marketing glass as half empty and leaking. An ever-increasing portion of their clients and prospects...
You Must Remember This
With the accelerating globalization of economic relations and the compression of travel and communication distances between countries, increasing numbers...
Nonresident Aliens
The gross estate of a nonresident alien1 (NRA) is determined in the same manner as the gross estate of a U.S. resident or citizen, although it's generally...
Just Off the Boat, Trust Fund in Hand
Many wealthy people today spend substantial amounts of time in various countries and many may eventually find themselves becoming tax residents of the...
Inheriting from Abroad
Over the years, planners have found several techniques useful in helping non-U.S. families pass wealth to the next generation: offshore personal investment...
Florida, the Tax Haven
Florida has evolved into a U.S. tax and creditor protection haven, seducing wealthy individuals to migrate south. One of the biggest draws is that Florida...
OFFSHORE TRUSTS: CROSSING THE TS
Offshore trusts are popular estate-planning tools for a various reasons, especially legal impunity. Some offshore jurisdictions don't recognize foreign...
Nailing the Lawyer For His Debtor-Client's Sins
So what exactly are fraud, fraudulent conveyance, deceit and fraudulent transfer and when are attorneys accountable? Being a trustee entails risk of personal...
How to Buy Software
In the world of trust and estates software, no package is all things to all users trying to perform a given task. So, when looking to buy software, focus...
DAF Kickbacks
An unethical practice is widespread among charities with donor-advised fund (DAF) programs. Financial advisors1 benefit financially from promoting and...
Come to America
Once, it was common to advise international clients to set up their tax-free trusts in one of the offshore tax havens places with sun-kissed beaches and...
The SNT Trap
Special needs trusts (SNTs) trusts created for the benefit of a disabled beneficiary present exciting opportunities for corporate fiduciaries. They also...
T&E Software and Online Resources
This article updates the guide published in Trusts & Estates, volume 143 (January 2004) and examines trust and estates software and online resources....
