A study reported by Harvard Business Review found that going from having no women in the C-suite to a 30% female leadership team is associated with a 15% increase in profitability.

A business owner who’s considering a purpose trust should understand the various transaction structures for transferring ownership of the business to the trust.

An IDGT “supercharges” wealth transfers by allowing the grantor to pay income taxes, including capital gains taxes, on assets transferred to the trust at no additional transfer tax cost to the grantor while simultaneously reducing the grantor’s estate for estate tax purposes.

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bittner v. United States held that, under the BSA, a taxpayer’s failure to file a compliant FBAR should be treated as one violation—not as a separate violation for each foreign account not timely reported.

Treasury Regulations Section 20.6325-1A requires that a Transfer Certificate be requested and received by the transfer agents, corporations, banks, trust companies and other custodians in actual or constructive possession of the decedent’s property if the decedent was a nonresident. The Transfer Certificate protects the custodian from liability for the decedent’s estate taxes and penalties by certifying that U.S. estate tax has been resolved (either paid or determined not to be due).

The primary ethical rules implicated in family representations are: (1) competence, (2) avoiding conflicts of interest with concurrent or former clients, and (3) confidentiality and privilege. Other factors relate to attorneys’ fiduciary roles and the perceived risks of family conflict versus the benefits of helping to prevent or ameliorate those conflicts through integrated services.

On March 7, 2024, Wyoming’s governor signed into law the Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association Act, a new legal framework for decentralized autonomous organizations and corporations, allowing them to be recognized as decentralized unincorporated non-profit associations. This type of organization is managed in whole or in part by a decentralized computer program, with voting and finances handled through a blockchain.

By the end of the third generation, on average, only 12% of family businesses remain family controlled, shrinking to 3% through the fourth generation and beyond.

Based on BBH’s experiences working with business-owning families, and interviews with approximately 30 women from those enterprises, they found three key factors that strongly influenced women’s paths to leadership: early (and egalitarian) exposure to the business, communication of inclusion as a family value and strong female role models in the family.

UEEPDA adopts the approach of Uniform Electronic Trust Act in that it only applies to documents that are “readable as text” at the time of execution. Thus, it excludes for instance, audio and videographic recordings purporting to be non-testamentary estate planning documents.