Asset Protection Trust Also Provides Same Benefits as a Revocable Trust

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Bryan Howard

Several of my clients established Asset Protection Trusts ("APTs") in July of 2007. That is the  month when they first became legal in Tennessee. Unfortunately, one of my first clients to establish a Tennessee APT died recently. She never experienced creditor problems and never needed the asset protection benefits afforded by the trust.

When she became very ill earlier this year, she transferred her remaining assets to the APT. She also exercised her testamentary limited power of appointment over the APT to make some specific bequests to friends and to take advantage of the absence of federal estate taxes in 2010. The document for making this exercise was analogous to an amendment to a revocable trust.

During the last few weeks of her life, the Trustee managed the trust assets for her benefit. Upon her death, the APT became a Will substitute. My client had a “pourover” will, but it will not be needed. Currently, the Trustee is administering the APT in the same manner that a revocable trust would be administered.

If you are going to employ a funded revocable trust as part of your estate plan, you should consider utilizing an APT. An APT gives you the same benefits as a revocable trust and provides asset protection during your lifetime.

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Give Your Life Insurance Trust a Tune-Up

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Bryan Howard

My clients often want to make changes to an irrevocable life insurance trust (“ILIT”). Fortunately, there are at least 6 methods for making changes to an ILIT.

I recently worked with a business owner who used 4 different techniques to restructure a series of ILITs that he established over a 25 year period. Two of the ILITs owned insurance on his life. Two other ILITs owned last-to-die policies insuring the business owner and his wife.

 

The first step was to create two new ILITs. The wife is a beneficiary of the new Family Trust which now owns the single life policies. The other new ILIT was designed as a Dynasty Trust and now owns the last-to-die policies, as well as one single life policy.

 

Next, the wife exercised a power to appoint the assets of one ILIT to the Dynasty Trust. The trustee of another ILIT used the leapfrog power of TCA Section 35-15-816(27) to distribute its policy to the Family Trust.

 

The trustee of a third ILIT merged that trust into the Dynasty Trust pursuant to TCA Section 35-15-417. Finally, the trustee of the fourth ILIT sold its policy to the Dynasty Trust, which was structured as a grantor trust in order to avoid potential income tax issues associated with this sale.

 

I would have preferred to use the same technique for moving all 4 of the old ILITs into the Family Trust and the Dynasty Trust. However, different techniques were required due to the specific wording of the trusts, and other factors including tax consequences. Even though it was complicated, the business owner accomplished his goals and several generations of his family will benefit from these changes.

 

Incidentally, the two techniques that we did not use were: (i) amending the trust pursuant to TCA Section 35-15-411; and (ii) buying a new policy, which was not a viable alternative due to the age of the policies involved and health changes that have occurred.

See the enclosed article (PDF) for more detail on these techniques.

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