Senator Tim Johnson (R- S.D.), incoming Senate Banking Committee Chair, began floating an amendment last week that would eliminate from Senate regulatory reform legislation the application of a fiduciary standard to investment advice provided by...

Even the Internal Revenue Service has now informally agreed: death does not trigger gain.

An installment sale to an irrevocable grantor trust is a popular estate-planning tool that allows the grantor to freeze the growth of an appreciating asset by selling it to a grantor trust in return for a promissory note. The sale is ignored for...

Recent private letter rulings issued by the Internal Revenue Service1 have created concern among estate-planning attorneys regarding the best way to draft trusts that are intended as potential receptacles of IRA or other qualified plan benefits...

After a 2006 opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in McCord v. Commissioner,1 many practitioners expanded their use of defined value clauses for certain transfer tax planning strategies. But many lawyers remained reluctant...

In a 2002 article,1 we examined at length the income-tax effects of the termination of a grantor trust by reason of the death of the grantor in the context of an installment sale.2 Acknowledging then that the law was unsettled, we considered the...

There are many ways to draft a modified accumulation trust. Here's one: Separate Accounting for Retirement Arrangements Except as otherwise provided in paragraph 3, below, if any trust hereunder shall have the right to receive retirement assets ...