Join me for my somewhat contrarian Leimberg SLAT webinar

Most marketable, mnemonic sales-oriented trust and estate planning efforts (e.g., SLATs [spousal limited access trusts)] are greatly oversold, in my opinion. I am not opposed to the use of SLATs, but believe strongly they are being marketed with over-weighted accolades that fail to reflect crucial tax and non-tax checklist items and other important considerations. As a practitioner, I try my best to review trust and estate sales efforts from the perspective of an informed customer, rather than simply from a seller’s view. My upcoming Leimberg webinar will cover an array of these different SLAT factors and issues that can help you better serve each particular client; and touch on the potential alternative or complimentary use of inter-vivos QTIP trusts. Click here for details about my upcoming webinar.

Most SLATs are Oversold

The popularity of SLATs (spousal limited access trust) is, in my view, a great marketing spin. But, in most cases, SLATs are being oversold.

Oversold for the following three key reasons:

(1) A Secondary Interest for the Settlor Spouse? How can (or will) the settlor spouse who creates and funds the SLAT obtain any interest in the SLAT in the event of the early death of the beneficiary spouse? Other than possibly inclusion of an unpredictable limited power of appointment under the terms of the SLAT, I simply cannot find an effective way to protect the settlor spouse. Also, in my view it is only by using an inter-vivos QTIP trust can the settlor spouse retain a secondary interest in the QTIP trust in the event the beneficiary spouse predeceases the settlor spouse without that retention triggering later estate inclusion for the settlor spouse for estate tax purposes. See Treas. Reg. Section 25.2523(f)-1(d)(1); see, for example, IRS Private Letter Rulings 200406004 and 200413011.

In addition, even if one can find tax-law support to avoid estate tax inclusion for the settlor spouse’s secondary interest in, e.g., a SLAT or inter-vivos QTIP trust, that tax planning becomes painfully illusory and ineffective if local state law treats the settlor spouse’s secondary interest as a self-settled trust for creditor claim purposes; thus likely triggering estate inclusion for estate tax purposes. See, for example, Rev. Proc. 76-103.

As to these protective state statutes, the North Carolina statute under N.C. Gen. Stat. Section 36C-5-505(c)(1) is an excellent, well-drafted statute for protecting a settlor spouse’s secondary interest. A copy of this NC statute in included in my recent SLAT speech outline I refer to at the end of this blog post. But, again simply having a protective state statute, even this NC statute, is of no value if the settlor’s secondary interest is a retained interest for federal estate tax purposes.

Not all is lost, however.

These excellent, protective state statutes do lay the foundation for some highly effective incomplete-gift SLAT and inter-vivos QTIP trust planning in situations where the settlor spouse’s funding of the trust is purposely designed as an incomplete gift for gift tax purposes. One might ask: so why bother with a SLAT or inter-vivos QTIP as an incomplete gift? My response is because the tremendous benefit of this incomplete-gift irrevocable trust set-up can provide outstanding asset protection and greater assurance the trust property will remain only within the settlor and beneficiary spouse’s family, and ultimately for their children. Reduces, as examples, the risk to the family assets of old-age, widow or widower predatory marriages, mismanagement of assets, Madoff schemes, etc.

(2) Divorce of the Spouses? This opens up numerous potential problems with SLAT planning well beyond the scope of this blog post. I address this topic much more fully in my SLAT outline referenced below. However, various planners who assert the SLAT can simply include a “movable” definition of “spouse”, or can effectively apply by its terms to a new subsequent spouse, are in my view simply wrong. In addition, most of the above protective state statutes I find dealing with a secondary interest for the settlor spouse mandate that the same beneficiary spouse to whom the settlor spouse is married at the time the trust is created must also continue as a beneficiary of the trust until that beneficiary spouse’s death. These statutes typically do not allow creative efforts in support of these shifting definitions of the beneficiary spouse.

(3) Long-Arm Jurisdictional Litigation Statutes. Any effort to create a trust in another state jurisdiction in order to avail the settlor spouse of more favorable laws in that state can quickly sink if the settlor’s home state’s long-arm jurisdiction statute can (easily in many cases) pull the out-of-state trust into the home state’s litigation arena.

This jurisdiction subject is too broad for this blog post. However, I cover this long-arm statute point and the above two preceding points in a comprehensive recent speech I gave on SLATs at the recent 67th Seattle Estate Planning Seminar. Click here for a pdf copy of my SLAT speech outline [this is a box.com link].

Also contact me if you have any questions or wish to discuss any of these points. james@ktlawllc.com

CPE / CLE in Seattle. October 24-25, 2022. Join Us.

As part of my shift away from litigation and return predominantly to trust and estate planning, I will be speaking at the 67th Annual Seattle Estate Planning Seminar, October 24-25, 2022 (Seattle, WA). Click here. My topic is “Will Your SLAT Fit the Right Slots?“. Come join us. The seminar blurb for my presentation is:

“The trust planning interest in SLATs (spousal lifetime access trusts) has become exponential over the past several months. Cocktail party fodder. Almost an effortless sell. This presentation touches on certain SLAT checklist items and potential pitfalls that may otherwise get overlooked in the SLAT design, such as the effect of divorce, substantive postnuptial agreement issues, creditor claims, the relation-back doctrine, long-arm litigation (jurisdiction) statutes, potential Code Section 2036 issues, cash-flow needs, and a brief commentary on fundamental differences with an inter-vivos QTIP trust.”

Inter-Vivos QTIP Trusts; Almost Perfect

For many years I have been, and remain, a fan of the inter-vivos QTIP trust.  There is no perfect estate planning, but this QTIP is almost perfect.   BTW, this is a brief, technical post primarily for advisors and practitioners who might find this topic useful for their clients.

This inter-vivos QTIP trust is a marital trust for a married couple designed under the QTIP tax laws.  QTIP, in tax law jargon, is “qualified terminable interest property.”

Essentially, one spouse creates and funds this inter-vivos QTIP trust while alive. The other spouse is the beneficiary of the QTIP trust. “Inter-vivos” is an old legal term meaning essentially “between the living”.  A trust someone creates while alive.  By contrast, a trust that only becomes operative when the person dies is a “testamentary” trust. Such as a trust provision in that person’s Last Will and Testament.

As an important aside, and part of the inter-vivos QTIP design, it is possible for the funding spouse later to become a secondary beneficiary of the QTIP trust if the other beneficiary spouse dies first. Also, the written provisions of the inter-vivos QTIP trust can include provisions for the children after both spouses’ deaths, etc.

In broad terms, the above inter-vivos QTIP trust provides the following benefits:

1. 1. It gives a married couple – while they are still living — asset protection for the assets in the inter-vivos QTIP trust.
       
   2. The inter-vivos QTIP trust is defective for income tax purposes from inception up to the death of the second spouse. This both-spouses duration of the defective status means no trust income tax returns, no compressed trust tax rates, and no separate 3.8% Medicare tax during the remaining lifetimes of both spouses.
       
   3. I am purposely repeating this above point. That is, defective during the lifetime of the spouse who creates the QTIP trust and during the surviving spouse’s lifetime. This effect on both spouse generally is not available for testamentary QTIP trust planning.
       
   4. The defective income tax status of this QTIP trust also allows the substitution of assets, called a “substitution power“. This can allow, if needed, stepped-up basis planning by later substituting into the QTIP trust high-basis assets for low-basis assets, etc.
       
   5. The inter-vivos QTIP, in my opinion, provides the optimal flexibility for portability options.
       
   6. The spouse’s funding of the inter-vivos QTIP trust starts the 5-year lookback period for Medicaid nursing home eligibility. This may be important in the event later the spouses need governmental Medicaid nursing home assistance. Medicaid planning – although generally not at the top of most family’s estate planning checklist – can greatly help prevent financial impoverishment of the other spouse (and possibly the children).
       

For readers who wish to delve into more technical aspects of this inter-vivos QTIP planning, I highly recommend the following breaking-ground 2007 article by well-known estate lawyers Mitchell Gans, Jonathan Blattmachr, and Diana Zeydel.   Click here for the link. It is a well-written article.