Family Limited Partnerships: Time to Batten Down the Hatches

Our final point of discussion regarding the newly proposed tax bill relates to limited partnerships.  Limited partnerships are a common tool for estate planners and are usually called family limited partnerships (or FLPs) in the estate planning context.  FLPs allow...

Life Insurance Trusts: In the Eye of the Storm

Holding life insurance through an irrevocable life insurance trust (“ILIT”) has been a common estate planning strategy for decades.  ILITs are commonly designed to ensure that the life insurance death benefit is not included as a part of the insured’s estate, and...

Grantor Trusts: High Tide Approaching, Move Your Sandcastles

The proposed legislation is pushing a high tide toward shore.  This could sweep away many gift and estate planning strategies, impacting grantor trusts first. An advanced tax strategy under current law is to structure trusts as “intentionally defective grantor...