Is Business Downturn Insurance Finally Available and Affordable?
Many economists are predicting a significant downturn in our economy. While there are many types of insurance policies to help one's business (i.e. liability, fire, interruption), there has never been a policy that would protect one's key assets from a downturn in the economy. The existing insurance policies focus on damage caused to one's assets, not to the protection of the assets in the event of bankruptcy, whether voluntary or involuntary...
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Business Asset Trust: An Entity to Protect Operational Assets
Business owners can now protect their business assets through the use of a special form of an asset protection trust (APT); a business asset trust (BAT). With proper planning, clients can segregate out and protect the machinery, equipment, cash, real estate, and any other assets needed to operate their company. For illustration purposes, the discussion that follows uses a model of a multiple-member S corporation. It may be possible to obtain similar results with other ownership structures...
Estate Planning Traps That Have Nothing To Do With Estate Taxes
Many practitioners think that estate planning is dead (excuse the pun) since the exemption has been raised to $5,000,000 (indexed) and there is even talk about repealing the Federal Estate Tax. While there are many interesting techniques for estates under $10,000,000; there are even more concerns for estate planners regardless of the size of the estate...
How to Prepare Your Company for Sale (with Due Diligence Checklist)
It is never to early to start planning for the eventual sale of your company. While this article will not explain every step that should be taken, the purpose is to give the reader a general framework for moving forward...
Creative Uses of Options and Trust to Transfer Wealth
Intentionally defective irrevocable trusts (IDITs) and grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRATs) have long been the staple in upper-end estate planning. This article, however, proposes a new option (no pun intended) as well as a resuscitation of a technique thought to be dead. The first strategy to transfer significant wealth to heirs, while circumventing the problems inherent in GRATs and IDITs, through a noncompensatory private option (NCPO). The second is a revival of the "reverse IDIT"...
A Decent Proposal
Practitioners traditionally have had limited tools to address a taxpayer's individual retirement account. Since amounts in an IRA can be subject to both income and estate taxes at death, many practitioners think it's best to have the IRA paid to or rolled into a spousal IRA. Others believe that the IRA should simply be paid to a charity. Alternatively, other practitioners try to have the IRA payments stretched over a period of time to take advantage of bracket creep. We propose a new option; on that can eliminate income, estate. gift and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax with respect to an IRA: Have the owner of a Roth IRA sell his beneficial interest to an intentionally defective irrevocable trust (IDIT).
Creative Uses of Intentionally Defective Irrevocable Trusts
Intentionally defective irrevocable trusts ("IDITs") are quickly becoming a preferred technique for minimizing estate taxes in large estates. This article will explore some of the latest cutting-edge ideas for structuring the entity from which interests will be transferred to the IDIT, optimizing the performance of IDITs, and using IDITs to solve other estate issues. Specifically, we will address the new spousal partnership rules, refinancing IDITs, using IDITs to fund life insurance premiums, and benefiting from the new Ohio/asset protection trust ("APT") rules...