Knowledge Base
Estate planning fundamentals, asset protection, legacy planning, and the legal frameworks that ensure your wealth goes where you intend — not where the courts decide.
73 articles in this category — page 3 of 7
The CARE acronym in estate planning stands for Create, Assess, Review, and Engage. For most people, that framework is adequate. For anyone holding $5M or more in assets, it is a starting point, not a finish line. The real work sits underneath each letter: trust structures, exemption timing, valuatio
Free estate planning documents handle the basics competently. What they cannot do is address the tax exposure, trust structures, business interests, and multi-state complexity that define a $5M+ estate. If your net worth clears the FatFIRE threshold, the real cost of a DIY approach is not the docume
A well-constructed estate planning questionnaire is the intake document your attorney, CPA, and financial advisor use to map your entire financial picture before a single trust document gets drafted. For estates above $5 million, the stakes on that intake process are material. Miss a business valuat
A non-grantor irrevocable complex discretionary spendthrift trust is a separately taxed legal entity that removes assets from your estate, shields them from creditors, and gives a trustee discretion over distributions. For high-net-worth individuals with meaningful litigation exposure, it is one of
Private purpose trust funds are irrevocable or revocable legal instruments that hold assets for the benefit of specific individuals or defined non-charitable purposes, governed by a trustee who must follow the terms you set in the trust document. Unlike charitable trusts, which direct assets toward
Land trusts in the United States exist on a patchwork legal map: a handful of states have explicit statutes authorizing them, most states tolerate them without dedicated law, and a few create enough friction that alternative structures make more sense. If you own real estate across multiple states,
The short answer most attorneys won't give you upfront: trust structure is outcome-determinative. A grantor with $10M in a revocable living trust who files Chapter 7 will almost certainly see 100% of those assets pulled into the bankruptcy estate under 11 U.S.C. § 541. The same $10M in a properly st
When comparing an irrevocable trust vs prenup, most articles treat them as competing strategies for the same problem. They aren't. A prenup governs how a divorcing spouse can claim your assets under state family law. An irrevocable trust removes those assets from your estate entirely, so they're nei
The US inheritance tax for non-residents operates on a $60,000 exemption. Not $6 million. Not $13 million. Sixty thousand dollars. A non-resident alien holding a $3 million position in US equities faces an estate tax liability of roughly $1.18 million at death, regardless of where the brokerage acco
Royalty trusts are pass-through entities that hold the rights to receive income from natural resource extraction, then distribute virtually all of it to unitholders. No retained earnings, no reinvestment, no growth. For FATFIRE investors evaluating high net worth investment opportunities in real ass
Family trusts disadvantages are real, material, and frequently undersold by the attorneys who bill to set them up. But the more important question for anyone sitting on $5M+ in assets is whether those disadvantages outweigh the cost of doing nothing. For most people at this level, the answer tilts d
The short answer: yes, in most cases. An ILIT must file Form 1041 with the IRS if it has gross income of $600 or more in a tax year, or any taxable income at all. For most ILITs holding only a life insurance policy during the grantor's lifetime, that threshold is rarely crossed, making the annual fi