Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) Trust practitioners often tell me that I am lucky to reside in a top-tier trust jurisdiction like Nevada that has excellent asset protection, valuation discount, decanting and dynasty trust laws, as well as no state income tax. However, they have it all wrong! Seriously. I largely have to rely on advisors outside of Nevada to refer me Nevada trust business, whereas practitioners in other jurisdictions have almost no competition among the local trust advisors since so few of them are taking advantage of out-of-state trust opportunities. Thus, the ability to…
Brexit: It Seems Like We’ve Been Here Before
Download Printable Article By Jason Oshins, Financial Advisor, MBA Britain has decided to exit the EU. By now, Brexit is a word firmly planted in our minds. The points are the points. To the extent we choose to politicize them is an individual decision. We’ve seen the immediate impact of the referendum. The pound dropped precipitously, reaching a 30-year low. The markets reverberated in grand form. “Volatility” joined “Brexit” on all major word-trending lists. Everybody became an instant expert, confidently predicting the impact on the global market. Talking heads screamed in high-pitched voices. Buy this! Sell that! A slew of…
Hybrid DAPTs, Regular DAPTs and the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act
Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) A small minority of states have adopted the new Uniform Voidable Transactions Act (“UVTA”). This Act is actually not a new Act. It is supposedly merely a renamed version of the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, but with certain changes. These changes include substantial Comments (i.e., comments made as a part of the UVTA by the Drafting Committee) that have generated controversy in large part because of their conclusive nature on certain open issues. This article will focus on those Comments that are specifically directed at Domestic Asset Protection Trusts (“DAPTs”)….
Five Outstanding Questions in the Estate Planning Industry and the Odds That They Will Happen
Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) There are always a number of outstanding questions in the estate planning industry, many of which are talked about over and over, seemingly at every large conference and on various listservs. Internet bloggers write about these questions, often making bold statements that sometimes come true, but in most cases turn out to be false. This article seeks to highlight some of these questions and posts the odds of them happening in this author’s opinion. The list is posted in order of those which are most likely to happen in 2016,…
The Top Six Estate Planning Concepts Your Future Ex-Spouse Doesn’t Want You to Know About
Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) Divorce can be ugly. But it’s a realistic possibility for anybody who is married. Therefore, estate planners must plan for it when designing their clients’ estate and asset protection plans. This article will highlight six concepts that can protect assets from a divorcing spouse and, in some cases, enhance or keep together the marital relationship — at least until the day of reckoning. The planning concepts described herein are listed in no particular order of importance. The “Floating Spouse Provision” – When designing a trust, unless there is a compelling…
The Top Eight Trust Jurisdictions If There Was a Jurisdictional Super Bowl
Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) The jurisdictional competition for state trust law supremacy is similar to the National Football League’s biggest annual event — the Super Bowl. Every year there are changes to state statutes that create more and more competition among the most proactive trust jurisdictions. The adrenaline and effort put forth by the trust promoters often equals or exceeds that of an NFL football player. If there were Jurisdictional Playoffs ending in a big game called the Jurisdictional Super Bowl, the question is, “Who would win the big game?” The Competitors Alaska, Delaware,…
The Top Seven Estate Planning Stories of the Past Half-Decade
Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) The past half-decade provided the estate planning community with plenty of drama and a lot of uncertainty and twists and turns. This article will briefly describe a number of estate planning-related stories, sometimes dramatic, and other times just plain unexpected and unpredictable. These stories will appear in reverse-order, David Letterman style. Obergefell: States Can’t Prohibit Same-Sex Marriages On June 26, 2015, by a 5-4 majority, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that a state can’t prohibit same-sex marriages and also must recognize valid out-of-state marriages. The rationale…
What’s Your Best Thing: A Music Lover’s Guide to Financial Success
Download Printable Article By Jason Oshins, Financial Advisor, MBA Music is the perfect analogue for wealth planning. All parts are interrelated, with each component complementing the others. It requires balance, and once out of alignment, its results are compromised. This is true, irrespective of the music genre. For me, absolute perfection is represented by the Beatles. The lyrics complement the melody, the chorus complements the verses. Each player’s contribution complements the aggregate. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I recently had the gift of a day in the studio with another favorite band of mine, the…
Innovative Changes to Nevada Decanting Statutes Effective 10/1/2015
Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) There are 22 states that have statutes allowing the distribution trustee of an irrevocable trust to decant the trust. The trustee decants the trust by distributing the trust assets into a different trust with different terms for one or more of the same beneficiaries of the original trust. In most cases, this second trust is a brand new trust. Essentially, this gives the trustee a “do-over” to make changes to the trust terms that traditionally would not have been permitted prior to the ability to decant without a judicial modification….
Planning for the Three Phases of Life
Download Printable Article By Jason Oshins, Financial Advisor, MBA From a wealth planning context, life unfolds in three phases: wealth protection, wealth access and enjoyment, and wealth transfer and replacement. This article focuses on the role of life insurance in each of these phases. When approaching planning with an eye for the long-view, the decisions you make might be dramatically different. After all, context is everything. WEALTH PROTECTION Wealth takes time to accumulate. In this phase, while wealth is accumulating, life insurance protects the family from an unexpected premature death. Obviously, we can’t address the emotional component, but we have…