Advanced Planning

A structured reference for transfer-tax strategies, family entities, directed trusts, situs, governance, and multigenerational stewardship.

Every guide opens with a simple explanation, then goes deeper into mechanics, tradeoffs, examples, state differences and sources.

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Guides in this section

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  • Start with

    Blind Trust

    A blind trust places investment control with an independent trustee and limits the beneficiary's knowledge or influence, but the label alone does not satisfy any particular public-ethics, securities, tax, or conflict rule.

  • Business Succession Planning

    Business succession coordinates voting control, economics, leadership, buy-sell terms, valuation, liquidity, key relationships, and the owner's personal estate plan before incapacity, retirement, or death.

  • Charitable Estate Planning

    Charitable planning can use direct gifts, beneficiary designations, donor-advised funds, split-interest trusts, or private foundations, each with different control, timing, valuation, administration, and tax effects.

  • Charitable Lead Trust CLT

    A charitable lead trust pays charity first for a term or measured lives, then transfers the remainder to noncharitable beneficiaries; annuity and unitrust versions have different valuation and tax characteristics.

  • Charitable Remainder Trust CRT

    A charitable remainder trust is an irrevocable split-interest trust that pays a qualifying noncharitable interest for a term or lives, with the remainder passing to charity; CRAT and CRUT payout designs differ.

  • Charitable Remainder Unitrust CRUT

    A CRUT is a charitable remainder trust that pays a fixed percentage of annually revalued trust assets, so payments can rise or fall with value; permitted net-income variants add further rules.

  • Community Property and Estate Planning

    Community-property law classifies ownership between spouses and can affect control, division, creditor exposure, federal reporting, and basis at death; nine states use a general community-property system and some states permit elective arrangements.

  • Credit Shelter / Bypass Trust CST / Bypass

    A credit shelter trust is funded at the first spouse's death to use available exclusion and benefit family without ordinary inclusion in the surviving spouse's estate when designed and administered correctly.

  • Directed Trust

    A directed trust divides traditional trustee functions among a directed trustee and one or more trust directors or advisers, such as separate investment, distribution, or family-business decision-makers.

  • Domestic Asset Protection Trust DAPT

    A DAPT is a self-settled irrevocable trust formed under a state's statute that may protect a settlor-beneficiary from some future creditors if strict requirements are met; interstate, bankruptcy, fraudulent-transfer, and public-policy issues make outcomes uncertain.

  • Dynasty Trust

    A dynasty trust is a long-duration trust designed to hold and govern assets for multiple generations, often combining GST planning, beneficiary protection, and flexible fiduciary governance.

  • Estate Planning for Real Estate Investors

    Real-estate planning coordinates title, management authority, debt, insurance, entity agreements, tax basis, liquidity, and property in multiple jurisdictions.

  • Family Governance and Multigenerational Planning

    Family governance uses agreed decision processes, education, communication, and role clarity to help a long-term plan function across people and generations; it complements rather than replaces legal documents.

  • Firearms / NFA Trust NFA Trust

    A firearms trust is a trust drafted to own and administer firearms under applicable federal and state law, including National Firearms Act procedures where relevant; it does not waive background checks, registration, transfer tax, possession limits, or local prohibitions.

  • Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax

    GST tax is a separate federal transfer-tax system for certain transfers to skip persons or skip trusts; exemption allocation and trust inclusion ratios require specific analysis.

  • Generation-Skipping Trust GST Trust

    A generation-skipping trust is designed for beneficiaries two or more generations below the transferor, or other skip persons, with deliberate GST-tax allocation and distribution planning.

  • Grantor Retained Annuity Trust GRAT

    A GRAT is an irrevocable term trust in which the grantor keeps a fixed annuity and transfers remaining value to beneficiaries if asset performance exceeds the assumed federal rate and the structure succeeds.

  • Income-Tax Basis at Death

    Property acquired from a decedent often receives a basis tied to fair market value at the applicable valuation date under federal law, but exceptions, entity rules, community property, and estate-inclusion questions matter.

  • Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust IDGT

    An IDGT is an irrevocable trust designed so a transfer can be complete for gift and estate tax while the grantor remains the income-tax owner; the 'defect' is intentional only in that tax-classification sense.

  • Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust ILIT

    An ILIT is an irrevocable trust designed to own or receive life insurance and manage proceeds, often seeking liquidity and exclusion from the insured's gross estate when ownership and administration rules are satisfied.

  • Irrevocable Trust

    An irrevocable trust is a broad category in which the settlor cannot simply reclaim or rewrite the arrangement at will; its tax, creditor, and control results depend on retained powers, beneficiary rights, funding, and governing law.

  • Marital Trust

    A marital trust is a broad descriptive category for a trust designed to benefit a spouse; it is not one standardized tax classification, and only a trust that satisfies the applicable statutory terms and elections receives a federal or state marital deduction.

  • Noncharitable Purpose Trust

    A noncharitable purpose trust holds property for a permitted purpose rather than ordinary human beneficiaries, typically requiring an enforcer and a state law that recognizes the purpose and duration.

  • Portability and Form 706

    Portability can allow a surviving spouse to use a deceased spouse's unused federal exclusion, but the deceased spouse's estate generally must make a valid election on Form 706 or qualify for available relief.

  • QTIP Marital Trust QTIP

    A QTIP trust can qualify property for the estate-tax marital deduction while requiring income for the surviving spouse and preserving the first spouse's control over the remainder, if statutory terms and the executor's election are satisfied.

  • Qualified Domestic Trust QDOT

    A QDOT can permit a marital deduction for qualifying property passing to a surviving spouse who is not a U.S. citizen, while imposing U.S.-trustee, withholding, security, and distribution-tax rules.

  • Qualified Personal Residence Trust QPRT

    A QPRT transfers a qualifying residence to an irrevocable trust while the grantor retains use for a fixed term, reducing the value of the taxable remainder gift if statutory requirements are met.

  • Retirement-Benefit Trust: Conduit or Accumulation

    A trust named as retirement-account beneficiary can be drafted to pass plan distributions out to a beneficiary (conduit) or retain them (accumulation), but qualification, payout timing, tax rate, protection, and beneficiary eligibility must be analyzed under current retirement law.

  • Spousal Lifetime Access Trust SLAT

    A SLAT is an irrevocable lifetime gift trust created by one spouse for the other spouse and often descendants, seeking to move assets outside the donor's estate while preserving indirect family access through discretionary distributions.

  • State Estate and Inheritance Taxes

    A state estate tax is generally assessed by reference to the estate, while an inheritance tax generally depends on what a beneficiary receives and the beneficiary's class; domicile and in-state property can both matter.

  • Third-Party Special Needs Trust SNT

    A third-party special needs trust holds assets contributed by someone other than the beneficiary and gives a trustee discretion to supplement the beneficiary's life without assuming the trust is invisible to every benefit program.

  • Withdrawal-Power / Crummey Trust

    A Crummey trust gives beneficiaries temporary, real withdrawal rights intended to make contributions present-interest gifts for annual-exclusion purposes; the rights, notices, funding, and trustee conduct must be genuine.

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