Advanced Planning Strategies

When your fundamental estate planning is in place, often it makes sense to engage in advanced estate planning to reduce taxes, make charitable gifts, or protect family and business interests, among other objectives.  Advanced planning employs various estate planning methods, including passing highly appreciated assets to a nonprofit to avoid capital gains exposure, freezing an asset's value and passing future gains to others, or transferring assets at below fair market rates so that you can transfer more of an asset within available gift tax exemption amounts. Some of the more common forms include the following:

•    Irrevocable trusts usually aim to remove assets from your estate, and include the Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT); Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust (IDGT); and Lifetime Qualified Terminal Interest Property Trust (Lifetime QTIP).

•    Charitable trusts aim to benefit both a charity and the donor by transferring assets with low-cost basis while avoiding capital gains taxes, and include the Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT) and Charitable Lead Trust (CLT).

•    Split interest trusts often freeze the value of an asset to prevent the asset's future appreciation from ending up in one's taxable estate, and include the Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT); Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT); Grantor Retained Unitrust (GRUT) and Grantor Retained Income Trust (GRIT).

•    Other common estate planning strategies include the Retirement Plan Trust (RPT) to ensure your beneficiaries do not waste the advantages of tax-deferred growth on an inherited IRA; and Family Limited Liability Company (FLLC) and Family Limited Partnership (FLP) structures to protect business and family assets while engaging in inter-generational tax planning.

Because estate planning can be complicated, this website aims to give you a general understanding of various estate planning concepts, including estate taxes, wills, trusts, advanced planning, asset protection, probate administration and trust administration, among many others. Please see the Disclaimer Page for more information.

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