Tax planning for high-net-worth families

An IDGT is a type of irrevocable trust that is optimized for estate tax savings popular for individuals who either expect to be significantly over the lifetime exemption amount, or live in a low-tax state and expect to be at least somewhat over the lifetime exemption amount. The key feature of IDGTs is that they are disregarded for income-tax purposes but not for gift and estate tax purposes.

An irrevocable trust used to reduce estate taxes, where the grantor pays income tax but the assets are removed from their estate.

ILITs are an efficient way of leveraging the power of life insurance to grow your wealth tax-free and pass it on to your heirs seamlessly. When you hold a life insurance policy inside one of these trusts, you can shelter the proceeds from estate taxes, protect assets from creditors, and provide long-term financial security for your loved ones.

Holds life insurance outside your estate to avoid estate taxes, protect from creditors, and pass wealth to heirs tax-free.

With a Crummey trust, you can give meaningful gifts to your loved ones, every year in a tax optimized way that uses your annual exemption to minimize the value of your estate lost to gift & estate taxes. You can  choose to keep paying the trust’s income taxes yourself, and those tax payments can be seen as additional gifts that don’t reduce your annual gift limit.

Allows annual tax-free gifts to a trust by giving beneficiaries temporary withdrawal rights, reducing estate size over time.

A CRUT is a tax-exempt structure that is well suited for individuals with high appreciated assets they have not yet sold. It allows you to defer the taxes you would otherwise pay when selling an asset, reinvest and grow those assets pre-tax inside a trust until you pull out money from the trust. At the end of the trust term, a portion is donated to a charitable organization.

Sell appreciated assets tax-deferred, receive income, and donate what’s left to charity at the end of the trust term.

A CLAT is a tax-advantaged structure designed for individuals with highly appreciated assets they have already sold. It allows you to reduce or offset capital gains taxes by contributing funds to the trust, which makes fixed annual payments to a charitable organization for a set period. At the end of the trust term, the remaining assets are distributed to your chosen beneficiaries, potentially with significant tax savings.

Donates annual income to charity while preserving the remainder for your heirs—ideal for offsetting capital gains on sold assets.

With a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT), you can transfer the future growth of your assets to your loved ones in a highly tax-efficient way. You retain a fixed annuity payment for a set term, and if the trust assets grow at a rate higher than the IRS’s assumed interest rate, all that extra appreciation goes to your beneficiaries free of gift tax. Meanwhile, you can continue paying the trust’s income taxes yourself, effectively creating additional gifts without using up more of your lifetime gift or estate tax exemption

You keep fixed payments while future asset growth passes to heirs tax-free, assuming returns beat a set IRS rate.