Tax-Related Estate Planning

by Layne T. Rushforth

Tax-Related Planning Memos These memos cover a number of topics related to saving federal transfer taxes.
= Memo is in Adobe Acrobat's portable document format (PDF).
Short Title	Description
Introduction to Transfer-Tax Planning	Overview of federal transfer taxes including the gift tax, the generation-skipping transfer tax, and the estate tax, as well as applicable exclusions and deductions.
Estate-Reduction Techniques	Estate-reducing gifts and strategies.
Dividing an A/B Trust or an A/B/C Trust into Subtrusts upon the First Death	When a trust for a married couple divides into subtrusts upon the first death, the trustee must allocate assets to those subtrusts, which may include a “Survivor's Trust”, a “Decedent's Trust” (or “Credit-Shelter Trust”), and possibly a “Marital Trust” (or “QTIP Trust”).
Estate Planning Using Business Entities	Utilitizing business entities to facilitate estate-planning objectives.
Irrevocable Trusts	Using irrevocable trusts to reduce transfer taxes.
Grantor-Retained Annuity Trust GRAT Overview	Making a deferred “discounted” gift by retaining the right to annuity payments for a term of years.
Grantor-Retained Annuity Trusts Trust Administration Tips	Instructions for the Settlor and the Trustee of a GRAT as to the proper administration of a GRAT.
Charitable Giving	Gifts and bequests to qualified charities and trusts for charities.
Charitable Lead Trusts	A trust that provides for distributions to one or more charities for a specified term, with the balance passing to your desired individual beneficiaries. The gift or estate tax is applied on the actuarily calculated present value of the remainder interest rather than on the full value of the property. The taxable value can be near zero.
The NING	The Nevada Non-Grantor, Incomplete Gift Trust. This trust is not designed to save federal transfer taxes, but is used by persons living in a state with high personal income tax rates to eliminate or reduce the that tax. A NING is also a self-settled spendthrift trust (asset-protection trust).
Estate-Freezing Techniques	Techniques to “freeze” the value of one’s estate by shifting growth and appreciation.

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