The Fully Discretionary Ascertainable StandardThe Fully Discretionary Ascertainable Standard

Anthony F. Vitiello & Daniel B. Kessler

A graying widower hires you to reduce his looming estate tax burden and to shelter the wealth he passes on against potential creditors of his descendants. He has three children and seven grandchildren keeping him happy and busy, and he wants to ensure their security after he's gone. Your client agrees to settle a multigenerational trust to house annual exclusion gifts and to purchase life insurance on his life. He is amenable to other advanced planning techniques as well, to ensure that the bulk of his wealth passes to his multigenerational trust in a tax-efficient manner. But as you begin drafting the trust, you come to a major impasse.

Asset protection attorneys are careful to draft trusts in a man...