Tax Planning With Self-Settled Non-Grantor Trusts

Practitioners are comfortable with and accustomed to drafting inter vivos grantor trusts and using gifts to such trusts to reduce a client’s estate tax exposure.¹ But, now that high state income taxes and creditor worries preoccupy many clients, inter vivos non-grantor trusts deserve attention, especially those established in jurisdictions that authorize self-settled spendthrift trusts and impose no state income tax on accumulated income. The primary jurisdictions are Alaska,