Where Does Your Trust Live?Where Does Your Trust Live?

State income tax laws have become much more complicated for trusts. Trusts can become subject to tax in multiple states based on the random intersection of various state laws. It’s important for estate planners to understand the key principles that drive state trust income taxation and methods to plan ahead for minimizing them. Ideally, effective state income tax planning will help advisors add value to the key family relationships they’ve developed with the plans they originally created for transfer tax planning purposes.

Change in Focus

In the 1990s, during the early half of my career, I focused client discussions on the areas of estate and wealth transfer tax planning. These conversations arose while exemption amounts remained lower tha...