The enactment of Internal Revenue Code Section 27021 in 1990 sounded a virtual death knell for the grantor retained income trust (GRIT). The GRIT fell into disuse, so much so that it is often overlooked even in the few circumstances that its use...

Peter Jennings, the longtime ABC News anchorman born in Canada, wound up living the American dream and dying with an estate worth in excess of $50 million, according to the probate petition filed late September with the New York County Surrogate's...

From David A. Handler, partner in the Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, we have this report: Transfer restrictions in a family limited partnership agreement are disregarded In Estate of Sidney E. Smith III v. United States, No. 02-264 Erie ...

For most advisors, Let's look at your IRA beneficiaries is about the 39th step in the financial planning process if it gets addressed at all. Worse yet, most clients are not even aware who will inherit their IRAs (some divorced individuals, for...

We've been getting a lot of calls from financial advisors about reverse mortgages, and, clearly, we're not the only ones. According to a survey of 111 banking institutions by the Mortgage Bankers Association, there was a 28 percent increase in...

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 imposes no income tax on individuals and trusts.1 As of Jan 1, 2006, there's also no...

We read with great interest GRATs: On a Roll by Julie K. Kwon and Daniel J. Loewy in the June issue. Their article concluded that short-term rolling GRATs can, depending on the circumstances, meet wealth transfer objectives better than a single...

Although trusts are, according to many theories, hundreds of years old, their provisions have changed more in the past 30 years than in the previous 300 years. The catalysts are not only increasingly complex laws, but also the fact that trusts are...

Many practitioners believe asset protection planning and estate planning are mutually exclusive. To some extent, this may be true; on rare occasions, clients may present issues so narrow that they can rightfully be classified as one sort of...

Offshore trusts are popular estate-planning tools for a various reasons, especially legal impunity. Some offshore jurisdictions don't recognize foreign judgments, and creditors have limited time to make claims on trusts established there.1 No...