The Private Trust Company Comes Back on Shore – In the United States

Today’s PFTCs bear little resemblance to ‘private trust companies’ of the 1990s, the gestation era for the PFTC. The modern US PFTC also differs markedly from a third form of ‘private trust company’: its ‘offshore’ single family private trust company (OFTC). Limited federal taxation of foreign trusts and privacy protections as good as or better than those found in traditional offshore jurisdictions have led some commentators to call the United States the ‘new offshore’ jurisdiction for trusts. When considering those legal advantages—and, more broadly, the landscape of family trust companies made possible by maturing state law environments—the OFTC presents attractive trustee and family office options for families residing outside and not just inside the United States.