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Managing family wealth over the long-term requires careful thought and a well-structured estate plan. Before making specific decisions about what’s best for your wealth, it’s wise to spend time considering what it is you really want to see happen with it. There are steps you can take—including considering trust options—to help create a legacy plan ...

Estate planning is often part of a divorce settlement, and negotiation of these terms can be as integral to the divorce settlement as allocation of parental responsibilities, support issues, or division of marital estate. For example, even a relatively simple Marital Settlement Agreement may generally contain waivers of an ex-spouse’s right to make...

Originating in English common law, trusts have been used for centuries to manage holdings of the wealthy. Even though trusts are quite common, many people may find them hard to understand. Having an introduction to the trust basics is a good place to begin and learn how trusts are used in wealth management plans to help provide financial support fo...

In nearly every discussion about estate planning, important questions and issues arise. If couples arrive in their attorney’s office having already thought about these issues—including assessing the level of financial management skills their beneficiaries should possess, how to communicate to their children about their hopes and expectations about ...

Trusts are valuable tools frequently used to transfer wealth within families, preserve and protect wealth, and reduce taxes. Understanding trusts and the role of the trustee is important for the people establishing trusts and the beneficiaries of those trusts. Building on this foundation, answers are provided to some questions about trusts and trus...

Following the enactment of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) explained that the CTA and FinCEN regulations "would help protect the U.S. financial system from illicit use by making it more difficult for bad actors to conceal their financial activities through ent...

As families and their advisers begin to prepare for U.S. entities in their succession planning structures to comply with the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), consideration should be given to U.S. holding companies and the requirement to report a business street address. This "Supplementary Information" section of the final regulations issued by th...

Rather than viewing trusts as a mechanism to protect beneficiaries from the dangers of wealth, what if trusts were viewed as vehicles to “ignite a fire” within the next generation? Imagine a trust structure that is designed to cultivate a spirit of entrepreneurialism by making beneficiaries active participants rather than passive recipients of thei...

Simply because the instrument governing your trust states that it is irrevocable and cannot be amended does not mean it cannot be modified to serve your family’s needs in a better fashion. Delaware law offers an array of options—administrative amendment, decanting, a nonjudicial settlement agreement, consent modification, trust merger, and judicial...

Being asked to oversee a family trust is a big deal. It’s a huge responsibility, and one you may not feel prepared to accept. Even if you’ve participated in or been exposed to the world of trusts, you may not have the knowledge or skills to be an effective trustee right now. The first step in deciding whether to accept this role is to learn more ab...