When A Policy Owner Dies
Two immediate potential problems should have been considered by the trust-resistant attorney:
There’s an old proverb somewhere that says if something can even be worse than anticipated, it probably will.
There’s an old proverb somewhere that says if something can even be worse than anticipated, it probably will.
FAFSA has certain eligibility criteria that determine, based on your income and net worth, how much you should be contributing to your child’s higher education. If the amount they determine you can pay is too high it renders you ineligible for assistance.
A song familiar to all tells us that, “Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage.” Maybe so. But when it comes to finances and marriage the use of the two as grist to the mill of so many matrimony jokes does not suggest such an harmonious coupling. Consider a couple tame examples:
Wife to husband: “I didn’t report your stolen credit card because the thief is using it more wisely than you did!”
Husband to wife: “I think I need to buy you a new bank account. The one you have keeps running out of money!”
Fortunately, fact usually looms larger than the fiction of humor. We find most high-net-worth married couples in full financial tandem, especially when it allows them to move large amounts of net worth out of their joint taxable estate and still keep access to the benefit of the assets after the transfer.
This is done through a common and time-tested planning device most-often referred to as the Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLAT).
So… a high-net-worth taxpayer can make full use of the current high lifetime exemption of $13,900,000 by transferring that amount to a SLAT for a spouse and still maintain vicarious access through that beneficiary spouse to the benefits of the property gifted.
A SLAT can also serve as the depository for life insurance outside the estate that can assist in payment of any unavoidable death taxes. In addition, legal counsel can be sought to see if a second trust can be used in a marriage to take similar advantage of the other lifetime exemption available to a married couple.
Call with additional questions or to arrange a conference or Zoom call on any planning topic with you and your clients, or their advisors, at Tom Virkler, 706-614-3796, or tom@cpsadvancedmarkets.com.
For What It’s Worth: Considered by many the wealthiest celebrity couple, and thus much in need of estate planning, are actress Salma Hayek and luxury goods CEO Francois-Henri Pinault. Married since 2009, the two share an estimated net worth of around $7.1 billion.
In one household a quiet and uneventful afternoon ended abruptly with this conversation:
Young son: “Hey, Mom. You know that valuable vase that’s been handed down in our family from generation to generation?”
Mother: “Yes, why?”
Son: “Well this generation just dropped it!”
Many high-net-worth clients have enough wealth to make large current gifts without affecting their current lifestyle. They anticipate leaving the full lifetime exemption amount to heirs at their passing but are tempted to make an untaxed $13,900,000 transfer before the exemption is reduced by 50% on January 1. The larger protected gift could easily save their estate more than $3,000,000 in death taxes down the road.
They don’t need the money, but still hesitate. So where’s the rub. In fact, there may be two rubs: affection and control. The assets transferred, often a family business, are labors of love which the donors want to continue to protect, at least during their lifetime. To follow the analogy, if the kids are gonna drop the valuable vase, they don’t want to see it happen.
A planning alternative that offers the best of both worlds, freeing assets from taxation while keeping control over them, is the Family Limited Liability Company (FLLC).
If an FLLC is a solution then its creation and implementation take time and an attorney, both of which will be in increasingly short supply as the New Year approaches.
Call with questions concerning your client’s FLLC planning or any taxation, business or estate issues that arise in your casework, to Tom Virkler at 706-614-3796 or tom@cpsadvancedmarkets.com.
For what it’s worth: When Gene Johnson lost her sister in 2010, it was left to Gene to clean out her London home where a vase was displayed on a shelf, a dusty souvenir from a trip to the Far East in the 1930s. Experts determined that the antique, now known as the Chinese Jiqingyouyu Reticulated Vase, was a product of the 18th century Qing Dynasty. Its last sale to a private buyer was two years later for $32,800,000.
The film only serves to fuel the suspicion we often have of those who seem too charitably minded; a suspicion that is understandably shared by insurance carriers.
A recent poll of over 3,000 undergraduate college students conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found most woefully ignorant of the basic elements of the U.S. Constitution. For example, only 28 % knew that the 13th Amendment ended slavery in the country. Worse, a recent nominee for the U.S. District Court was asked in the Senate hearing the purpose of Article II of the Constitution. The candidate was unable to answer correctly but, nonetheless, now sits on the bench.
Oh well. All that concerns us today concerning our founding document is Article I, Section 7, which begins, “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives…”
Given all the inclusions and issues involved in a tax bill, and all the bargaining and trade-offs they create, the fate of high-exemption planning may be as uncertain as before.
Call to arrange a more full discussion of the additional advantages of this simple and straight-forward solution that addresses the uncertainty of the times. You may include your clients and their advisors, if needed.
Tom Virkler, JD
Director, CPS Advanced Markets
706.614.3796
tom@cpsadvancedmarkets.com
Life insurance is often used as security on a loan, usually in a business situation.
When proposing life insurance we would manage client expectations better if we took time to explain the disproportionate obligations that exist once coverage is put in force.
Deferred compensation (or SERPs) and split dollar plans have become too regulation-laden and require too much administration, record-keeping and reporting to jingle any bells amongst most prospects.
The cost of getting with the attorney to draft and implement a written agreement, to say nothing of the time and effort required, is discouragingly disproportionate to the amount of premiums for the coverage.