The Beneficiary Controlled Trust*

By Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP (Distinguished) The Beneficiary Controlled Trust name was first introduced to the estate planning industry by my father and me in our two-part article, “Protecting & Preserving Wealth into the Next Millennium,” published in the September and October 1998 issues of Trusts & Estates magazine.  [Portions of this article were taken from the 1998 article.]  Since that time, the Beneficiary Controlled Trust concept has been widely used by estate planners all over the country.  This article describes this philosophy. Background Most trust scriveners draft trusts that make mandatory distributions to the beneficiaries upon reaching certain…

Heckerling 2024 Reports from the ABA

The 2024 Heckerling Institute was held in-person (and virtually) in Orlando on January 8-12 and marked the conference’s 58th year. The Phillip E. Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning is the nation’s premier conference for estate planning professionals, offering unparalleled educational and professional development opportunities for all members of the estate planning team.  Over the course of the conference’s five days, numerous timely topics of interest to estate planners of all designations—including, but not limited to, attorneys, trust officers, accountants, charitable giving professionals, elder law specialists, wealth management professionals, and nonprofit advisors. As they have done for many years, the American…

Which Jurisdictions Are Best in 2024?

By Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP (Distinguished) It often makes sense to situs clients’ trusts in a trust jurisdiction where there is no state income tax, where the trust assets are protected from creditors and divorcing spouses, where estate taxes can be avoided forever or close to forever, and where there is flexibility to make changes to irrevocable trusts that are otherwise protected. But which jurisdictions are best? The First Tier Two trust jurisdictions stand above the rest, Nevada and South Dakota.  Although one can argue for one or the other as #1, there is absolutely no believable argument that…

New Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) Provisions in SECURE Act 2.0 – Some Welcome, Some Dubious

By Edwin P. Morrow, III, J.D., LL.M., MBA, CFP®, CM&AA® and Nancy H. Welber, J.D., ACTEC Thanks to the generosity of Leimberg Information Services, we are pleased to provide you this recently published article on LISI. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Section 307 of the SECURE 2.0 Act, effective beginning in 2023, provides an expansion of the qualified charitable distribution (QCD) provisions to adjust for inflation and include limited distributions to fund charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder trusts. There are several limitations that severely restrict the usefulness of this new provision, however, particularly for QCDs to charitable remainder trusts. FACTS Congress recently…

The Outstanding Success of an Estate Planning Attorney’s First Year in Practice

Interview of Attorney Leigh Cowden by Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach I had the opportunity to meet Leigh Cowden virtually through a Facebook group she formed called Lawyers Doing Seminars.  I followed a lot of her success and she gave me the opportunity to share some of our own seminar marketing tips with the group on one of their monthly Zoom sessions.  From there, she began to inquire with me about what we do and attended our Ultimate Level event in Dallas in May.  I have followed her progress over the past few months and she then shared with the…

Advisors Who Don’t Use Out-of-State Trusts: What Their Clients Get

By Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP (Distinguished) Most advisors stick to using their own home state’s trust laws and fail to take advantage of other states’ more favorable laws. This would be like forming business entities in your home state rather than going to traditional best states such as Nevada or Delaware. This analogy should put in perspective how much is lost for the client by failing to maximize the use of more favorable trust laws. What This Means for the Clients The clients of advisors who fail to use out-of-state trusts often can’t modify preexisting irrevocable trusts without going…

2023 National Estate Planning Awareness Month

The third week of October is National Estate Planning Awareness Week.  It’s October 16-22 this year.  Bringing awareness and educating the public about estate planning is crucial to not only keeping families out of Probate Court, but also for helping manage, preserve and distribute their hard-earned assets to their loved ones, as they wish. To help spread the word about estate planning and National Estate Planning Awareness Week, feel free to download and use the image below in your public marketing (website, blogs, newsletters, social media, etc.).

Three-Year-Old Tiffany Oshins Interviews Daddy About Domestic Asset Protection Trusts

By Tiffany A. Oshins and Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP (Distinguished) Three-year-old student Tiffany A. Oshins (“Tiffany”) recently sat down with her father, estate planning attorney Steve Oshins (“Daddy”).  Tiffany interviewed Daddy about asset protection planning and Domestic Asset Protection Trusts. Below are highlights from the interview.  [Daddy helped Tiffany with a lot of her spelling.] Tiffany:  I overhear you talking about asset protection planning all the time.  How do you start this conversation with prospective clients? Daddy:  Many of them come to me specifically for asset protection planning.  So the conversation is simple with them because they already have that…

How to Work Around California’s Anti-ING Trust Legislation

By Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP (Distinguished) It finally happened.  California passed SB 131 in its 2023 legislative session which, among other things, sadly contains a provision treating all so-called Incomplete Non-Grantor Trusts (“ING Trusts”) as grantor trusts taxed to the settlor. This takes away a key tool planners have used for many years to reduce California state income tax on taxable income not sourced to California. The legislation is effective retroactive to January 1, 2023, so many California residents were wrongly punished for following the law that existed prior to the date this legislation passed.  It remains to be…

5 Commonly Overlooked Uses of Life Insurance

By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law Now that estate taxes apply to less than 0.2% of Americans, I have had life insurance agents (as well as financial planners, CPAs, and attorneys) ask me whether there’s any need for life insurance anymore in clients’ planning, beyond the still standard needs for replacing the income of a head of household or funding a business partner buy-sell agreement. Over my 40+ years of experience in advising clients on estate, tax, and financial planning, I have seen and utilized…