Keeping Vacation Home in the Family

March 1, 2022

If your family enjoys a treasured vacation home, have you planned for what will happen to the property when you die? There are many different ways of keeping a vacation home in the family. However, they all require planning to avoid stressful and expensive issues, says a recent article “Your Vacation Home Needs and Estate Plan!” from Kiplinger.

First, establish how your spouse and family members feel about the property. Do they all want to keep it in the family, or have they been attending family gatherings only to please you? Be realistic about whether the next generation can afford the upkeep, since vacation homes need the same care and maintenance as primary residences. If all agree to keep the home and are committed to doing so, consider these three ways to make it happen.

Leave the vacation home to children outright, pre or post-mortem. The simplest way to transfer any property is transferring via a deed. This can lead to some complications down the road. If all children own the property equally, they all have equal weight in making decisions about the use and management of the property. Do your children usually agree on things, and do they have the ability to work well together? Do their spouses get along? Sometimes the simplest solution at the start becomes complicated as time goes on.

If the property is transferred by deed, the children could have a Use and Maintenance Agreement created to set terms and rules for the home’s use. If everyone agrees, this could work. When the children have their own individual interest in the property, they also have the right to leave their share to their own children—they could even give away or sell their shares while they are living. If one child is enmeshed in an ugly divorce, the ex-spouse could end up owning a share of the house.

Create a Limited Liability Company, or LLC. This is a more formalized agreement used to exert more control over the property. An LLC operating agreement contains detailed rules on the use and management of the vacation home. The owner of the property puts the home in the LLC, then can give away interests in the LLC all at once or over a period of years. Your estate planning attorney may advise using the annual exclusion amount, currently at $16,000 per recipient, to make this an estate tax benefit as well.

Consider who you want to have shares in the home. Depending on the laws of your state, the LLC can be used to restrict ownership by bloodline, that is, letting only descendants be eligible for ownership. This could help keep ex-spouses or non-family members from ownership shares.

An LLC is a good option, if the home may be used as a rental property. Correctly created, the LLC can limit liability. Profits can be used to offset expenses, which would likely help maintain the property over many more years than if the children solely funded it.

What about a trust? The house can be placed into an Irrevocable Trust, with the children as beneficiaries. The terms of the trust would govern the management and use of the home. An irrevocable trust would be helpful in shielding the family from any creditor liens.

A Revocable Trust can be used to give the property to family members at the time of your death. A sub-trust, a section of the trust, is used for specific terms of how the property is to be managed, rules about when to sell the property and who is permitted to make the decision to sell it.

A Qualified Personal Residence Trust allows parents to gift the vacation home at a reduced value, while allowing them to use the property for a set term of years. When the term ends, the vacation home is either left outright to the children or it is held in trust for the next generation.

Each of these options allows you the satisfaction of keeping that the treasured vacation home in the family. If you would like to learn more about managing property in estate planning, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Kiplinger (Feb. 1, 2022) “Your Vacation Home Needs and Estate Plan!”

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Consider Gifting to Loved Ones before Tax changes

December 2, 2021

With all of the talk about changes to estate taxes, estate planning attorneys have been watching and waiting as changes were added, then removed, then changed again, in pending legislation. The passage of the infrastructure bill in early November may mark the start of a calmer period, but there are still estate planning moves to consider, says a recent article “Gift money now, before estate tax laws sunset in 2025” from The Press-Enterprise. It is wise to consider gifting to loved ones before tax changes arrive.

Gifts are used to decrease the taxes due on an estate but require thoughtful planning with an eye to avoiding any unintended consequences.

The first gift tax exemption is the annual exemption. Basically, anyone can give anyone else a gift of up to $15,000 every year. If giving together, spouses may gift $30,000 a year. After these amounts, the gift is subject to gift tax. However, there’s another exemption: the lifetime exemption.

For now, the estate and gift tax exemption is $11.7 million per person. Anyone can gift up to that amount during life or at death, or some combination, tax-free. The exemption amount is adjusted every year. If no changes to the law are made, this will increase to roughly $12,060,000 in 2022.

However, the current estate and gift tax exemption law sunsets in 2025. This will bring the exemption down from historically high levels to the prior level of $5 million. Even with an adjustment for inflation, this would make the exemption about $6.2 million. This will dramatically increase the number of estates required to pay federal estate taxes.

For households with net worth below $6 million for an individual and $12 million for a married couple, federal estate taxes may be less of a worry. However, there are state estate taxes, and some are tied to federal estate tax rates. Planning is necessary, especially as some in Congress would like to see those levels set even lower.

Let’s look at a fictional couple with a combined net worth of $30 million. Without any estate planning or gifting, if they live past 2025, they may have a taxable estate of $18 million: $30 million minus $12 million. At a taxable rate of 40%, their tax bill will be $7.2 million.

If the couple had gifted the maximum $23.4 million now under the current exemption, their taxable estate would be reduced to $6.6 million, with a tax bill of $2,520,000. Even if they were to die in a year when the exemption is lower than it was at the time of their gift, they’d save nearly $5 million in taxes.

There are a number of estate planning gifting techniques used to leverage giving, including some which provide income streams to the donor, while allowing the donor to maintain control of assets. These include:

Discounted Giving. When assets are transferred into an entity (commonly a limited partnership or limited liability company), a gift of a minority interest in the entity is generally given a discounted value, due to the lack of control and marketability.

Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts. The donor transfers assets to the trust and retains right to a payment over a period of time. At the end of that period, beneficiaries receive the assets and all of the appreciation. The donor pays income tax on the earnings of the assets in the trust, permitting another tax-free transfer of assets.

Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts. A donor sets up a trust, makes a gift of assets and then sells other assets to the trust in exchange for a promissory note. If this is done correctly, there is a minimal gift, no gain on the sale for tax purposes, the donor pays the income tax and appreciation is moved to the next generation.

These strategies may continue to be scrutinized as Congress searches for funding sources, but in the meantime, they are still available and may be appropriate for your estate. Speak with an experienced estate planning attorney to see if these or other strategies should be put into place. It is time to seriously consider gifting to loved ones before estate tax changes arrive. If you would like to learn more about gifting, and other charitable options in estate planning, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: The Press-Enterprise (Nov. 7, 2021) “Gift money now, before estate tax laws sunset in 2025”

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What Is a Dynasty Trust?

October 26, 2021

What is a dynasty trust? Don’t be put off by the term “dynasty.” Just as every person has an estate, even if they don’t live in a million-dollar home, every person who owns assets could potentially have a dynasty trust, even if they don’t rule a continent. If you have assets that you wish to pass to others, you need an estate plan and you may also benefit from a dynasty trust, says this recent article from Kiplinger, “A Smart Option for Transferring Wealth Through Generations: The Dynasty Trust.”

When parents die, assets are typically transferred to their descendants. In most cases, the assets are transferred directly to the heirs, unless a trust has been created. Estate taxes must be paid, usually from the assets in the estate. Inheritances are divided according to the will, after the taxes have been paid, and go directly to the beneficiary, who does what they want with the assets.

If you leave assets outright to heirs, when the beneficiary dies, the assets are subject to estate taxes again. If assets are left to grandchildren, they are likely to incur another type of taxes, called Generation Skipping Transfer Taxes (GSTT). If you want your children to have an inheritance, you’ll need to do estate planning to minimize estate tax liability.

If you own a Family Limited Partnership (FLP) or a Limited Liability Company (LLC), own real estate or have a large equity portfolio, you may have the ability to use gifting and wealth transfer plans to provide for your family in the future. You may be able to do this without losing control of the assets.

The “dynasty trust,” named because it was once used by families like the DuPont’s and Fords, is created to transfer wealth from generation to generation without being subject to various gift, estate and/or GSTT taxes for as long as the assets remain in the trust, depending upon appliable state laws. A dynasty trust can also be used to protect assets from creditors, divorcing spouses and others seeking to make a claim against the assets.

Many people use an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT) and transfer the assets free of the trust upon death. Most living trusts are transferred without benefit of being held within trusts.

A dynasty trust is usually created by the parents and can include any kind of asset—life insurance, securities, limited partnership interests, etc.—other than qualified retirement plans. The assets are held within the trust and when the grantor dies, the trust automatically subdivides into as many new trusts as the number of beneficiaries named in the trust. It’s also known as a “bloodline” trust.

Let’s say you have three children. The dynasty trust divides into three new trusts, dividing assets among the three. When those children die, the trust subdivides again for their children (grandchildren) in their own respective trusts and again, assets are divided into equal shares.

A dynasty trust offers broad powers for health, welfare, maintenance and support. The children can use the money as they wish, investing or taking it out. When created properly, the assets and growth are both protected from estate taxes. Speak with an estate planning attorney to make sure you fully understand what a dynasty trust is, and if it is right for you. You’ll need a trustee and a co-trustee and an experienced estate planning attorney to draft and execute this plan.

If you would like to learn more about a dynasty trust, and other types of multi-generational planning vehicles, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Kiplinger (Oct. 2, 2021) “A Smart Option for Transferring Wealth Through Generations: The Dynasty Trust”

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Keep the Vacation Home in the Family

September 10, 2021

There are several ways to keep the vacation home in the family and is not overly burdensome to any one member or couple in the family, according to the article “Estate planning for vacation property” from Pauls Valley Daily Democrat.

To begin, families have the option of creating a legal entity to own the asset. This can be a Family LLC, a partnership or a trust. The best choice depends upon each family’s unique situation. For an LLC, there needs to be an operating agreement, which details management and administration, conflict resolution, property maintenance and financial matters. The agreement needs to include:

Named management—ideally, two or three people who are directly responsible for managing the LLC. This typically includes the parents or grandparents who set up the LLC or Trust. However, it should also include representatives from different branches in the family.

Property and ownership rules must be clarified and documented. The property’s use and rules for transferring property are a key part of the agreement. Does a buy-sell agreement work to give owners the right to opt out of owning the property? What would that look like: how can the family member sell, who can she sell to and how is the value established? Should there be a first-right-of refusal put into place? In these situations, a transfer to anyone who is not a blood descendent may require a vote with a unanimous tally.

There are families where transferring ownership is only permitted to lineal descendants and not to the families of spouses who marry into the family.

Finances need to be spelled out as well. A special endowment can be included as part of the LLC or as a separate trust, so that money or investments are set aside to pay taxes, upkeep, insurance and future capital requirements. Anyone who has ever owned a house knows there are always capital requirements, from replacing an ancient heating system to fixing a roof after decades of a heavy snow load.

If the endowment is not enough to cover costs, create an agreement for annual contribut6ions by family members. Each family will need to determine who should contribute what. Some set this by earnings, others by how much the property is used. What happens if someone fails to pay their share?

Managing use of the property when there is a legal entity in place is more than a casual “Who calls Mom and Dad first.” The parents who establish the LLC or Trust may reserve lifetime use for themselves. The managers should establish rules for scheduling.

For parents or grandparents who create an LLC or Trust, be sure it works with your estate plan. If they intend to keep the vacation home in the family and wish to leave a bequest for its maintenance, for instance, the estate planning attorney will be able to incorporate that into the LLC or Trust.

If you would like to learn more about protecting property in estate planning, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Pauls Valley Democrat (July 29, 2021) “Estate planning for vacation property”

Estate planning is a lot more than simply a tax strategy

Estate Planning is more than a Tax Strategy

May 18, 2021

Estate planning is more than a tax strategy. It’s about creating a legacy and protecting your family for the short and long term, explains the article “Create A Holistic Estate Plan Now For Bigger Payoffs In The Future” from Forbes. The process begins with as much disclosure as possible. That means talking with your estate planning attorney about the challenges your family faces, as well as the assets to be left for loved ones.

One change to the tax code can disrupt decades of careful planning and leave people scrambling to protect loved ones. Market tumult can require assets to be sold to meet cash flow needs. Charitable contributions may also need to be reviewed and possibly changed, if the family’s asset level changes.

There are three aspects to consider when creating an estate plan: a lifetime spending strategy, a charitable legacy and bequests. All of these are impacted by taxes and need to be reviewed as a whole.

Lifetime spending strategy. These questions are centered on your goals and plans. Where do you want to live during retirement and how do you wish to live, travel and entertain? Will you stay in place and focus on charitable organizations, or travel throughout the year? It’s good to set a budget and stress-test it to see what different outcomes may arise.

A family that owns businesses or large real estate holdings may benefit from strategies, like family limited partnerships. A sale of the business to an outsider or a family member could create many different options, and all should be considered.

Charitable gift planning. Estate planning offers a way to clarify charitable giving goals and create a road map for how gifting can be transformed into a legacy. A well-planned charitable gift strategy can also minimize estate taxes and maximize the future of the gift, for both the family and the charities you favor.

A Charitable Remainder Trust is used to provide an income stream during your lifetime and reach gifting goals at the same time. One way to accomplish this is to transfer an asset, like highly appreciated stocks or bonds, into an irrevocable trust, thereby removing the asset from your taxable estate. The trustee may then sell the asset at market value and reinvest, creating a lifelong income stream for you or a beneficiary.

Leaving assets, not estate tax bills, for heirs. Families who own multiple properties in their own names or in a single LLC can lead to a lot of administrative headaches when the owners die. One simple fix is to place each property into a separate LLC, which increases the availability of strategic tax savings.

Another way to minimize estate taxes is through the use of life insurance. This is a strategy to do while you are still relatively healthy, as it becomes increasing difficult to obtain once you turn 60 or 70.

Estate planning is a lot more than simply a tax strategy. All of these planning tools take knowledge and time to set up, so creating an estate plan and working through the many different strategies is best done with an experienced estate planning attorney and before any trigger events occur.

If you would like to learn more about strategies to ensure your wealth goes where you want it, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Forbes (April 6, 2021) “Create A Holistic Estate Plan Now For Bigger Payoffs In The Future”

Asset Protection In Estate Planning

August 18, 2020

You can make asset protection part of your estate planning. Forbes’ recent article entitled “Three Estate Planning Techniques That Protect Your Assets From Creditors” explains that the key to knowing if your assets might be susceptible to attachment in litigation is the fraudulent conveyance laws. These laws make a transfer void, if there’s explicit or constructive fraud during the transfer. Explicit fraud is when you know that it is likely an existing creditor will try to attach your assets. Constructive fraud is when you transfer an asset, without receiving reasonably equivalent consideration. Since these laws void the transfer, a future creditor can attach your assets.

Getting reasonably equivalent consideration for a transfer of assets will eliminate the transfer being treated as constructive fraud. Reasonably equivalent consideration includes:

Funding a protective trust at death to provide for your spouse or children
Asset transfer in return for interest in an LLC or LLP; or
A transfer that exchanges for an annuity (or other interest) that protects the principal from claims of creditors.

Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) can be an asset protection entity, because when assets are transferred into the LLC, your creditors have limited rights to get their hands on them. Like a corporation, your interest in the LLC can be attached. However, you can place restrictions on the sale or transfer of interests that can decrease its value and define the term by which sale proceeds must be paid out. An LLC must be treated as a business for the courts to treat them as a business. Thus, if you use the LLC as if it were your personal property, courts will disregard the LLC and treat it as personal property.

Annuities are created when you exchange assets for the right to get payment over time. Unlike annuities sold by insurance companies, these annuities are private. These annuities are similar to insurance company annuities, in that they have some income tax consequences, but protect the principal against attachment.

You can also ask an experienced estate planning attorney about trusts that use annuities, which are called split interest trusts. There is a trust where you (the Grantor) give assets but keep the right to receive payments, which can be a fixed amount annually with a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (or GRAT.)

Another trust allows you to get a variable amount, based on the value of the assets in the trust each year. This is a Grantor Retained Uni-Trust or GRUT. If the assets are vacant land or other tangible property, or being gifted to someone who’s not your sibling, parent, child, or other descendant, you can keep the income from the assets by using a Grantor Retained Income Trust (or GRIT).

Along with a trust where you make a gift to an individual, you can protect the trust assets and get a charitable deduction, if you make a gift to charity through trusts. There are two types of trust for this purpose: a Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT) lets you keep an annuity or a variable payment annually, with the remainder of the trust assets going to charity at the end of the term; and a Charitable Lead Trust (CLT) where you give a fixed of variable annuity to charity for a term and the remainder either back to you or to others.

To get the most from your asset protection, work with an experienced estate planning attorney. To learn more about asset protection and other ways to secure your planning, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Forbes (June 25, 2020) “Three Estate Planning Techniques That Protect Your Assets From Creditors”

Creating a Family LLC for Estate Planning

July 21, 2020

If you want to transfer assets to your children, grandchildren or other family members but are worried about gift taxes or the weight of estate taxes your beneficiaries will owe upon your death, creating a family LLC for estate planning can help you control and protect assets during your lifetime, keep assets in the family and lessen taxes owed by you or your family members.

Investopedia’s article entitled “Using an LLC for Estate Planning” explains that a LLC is a legal entity in which its owners (called members) are protected from personal liability in case of debt, lawsuit, or other claims. This shields a member’s personal assets, like a home, automobile, personal bank account or investments.

Creating a family LLC for estate planning lets you effectively reduce the estate taxes your children would be required to pay on their inheritance. A LLC also lets you distribute that inheritance to your children during your lifetime, without as much in gift taxes. You can also have the ability to maintain control over your assets.

In a family LLC, the parents maintain management of the LLC, and the children or grandchildren hold shares in the LLC’s assets. However, they don’t have management or voting rights. This lets the parents purchase, sell, trade, or distribute the LLC’s assets, while the other members are restricted in their ability to sell their LLC shares, withdraw from the company, or transfer their membership in the company. Therefore, the parents keep control over the assets and can protect them from financial decisions made by younger members. Gifts of shares to younger members do come with gift taxes. However, there are significant tax benefits that let you give more, and lower the value of your estate.

As far as tax benefits, if you’re the manager of the LLC, and your children are non-managing members, the value of units transferred to them can be discounted quite steeply—frequently up to 40% of their market value—based on the fact that without management rights, LLC units become less marketable.

Your children can now get an advance on their inheritance, but at a lower tax burden than they otherwise would’ve had to pay on their personal income taxes. The overall value of your estate is reduced, which means that there is an eventual lower estate tax when you die. The ability to discount the value of units transferred to your children, also permits you to give them gifts of discounted LLC units. That lets you to gift beyond the current $15,000 gift limit, without having to pay a gift tax.

You can give significant gifts without gift taxes, and at the same time reduce the value of your estate and lower the eventual estate tax your heirs will face.

Speak to an experienced estate planning attorney about a family LLC, since estate planning is already complex. LLC planning can be even more complex and subject you to heightened IRS scrutiny. The regulations governing LLCs vary from state to state and evolve over time. In short, a family LLC is certainly not for everyone and it appropriately should be vetted thoroughly before creating one.

Reference: Investopedia (Oct. 25, 2019) “Using an LLC for Estate Planning”

Category: Limited Liability Company (LLC)

Keeping Vacation Home in the Family

Consider Gifting to Loved Ones before Tax changes

What Is a Dynasty Trust?

Keep the Vacation Home in the Family

Estate Planning is more than a Tax Strategy

Asset Protection In Estate Planning

Creating a Family LLC for Estate Planning

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