Is a Trust a Legal Entity? If Not, What is It?

Recently, an attorney friend of mine involved in a family legal matter concerning trust administration called to ask me what probably seemed like a simple question – is a trust a legal entity? The point of the question related to procedural aspects of trust administration, issues involving duties of the attorney involved, and related considerations.…
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Monetized Installment Sales – Proposed Regulations will Lead to Burdensome Reporting Requirements and Increased Scrutiny

Monetized Installment Sales, as previously written upon by Gray Edmondson,[1] have been subject to increased scrutiny by the IRS in recent years, making its “Dirty Dozen” list in each of the last three years.[2] The IRS remains on the offensive in scrutinizing such transactions, issuing proposed regulation under Internal Revenue Code Section 6011 in August…
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Mississippi Medicaid Estate Recovery and Homestead Protection

If you’ve ever owned a home in Mississippi, you are probably familiar with the concept of homestead exemption, if for no other reason than to reduce the amount of ad valorum (property) taxes you pay each year. While filing for the homestead exemption in Mississippi does provide the benefit of reducing these taxes, its main…
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Life Settlements of Life Insurance Policies: What, When, and How

Many individuals take out life insurance policies for valid planning reasons which later are no longer needed or desirable. Alternatively, the policy owner may need current liquidity. While many policies can be surrendered for their cash value or the owner may take loans against the policy, there may be other options. One of those options…
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Threading the Needle – The Utility and Structural Requirements of ING Trusts

Estate planners and tax practitioners have been utilizing incomplete non-grantor trusts, or “ING” trusts, with increased frequency. ING trusts can be utilized for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to, federal income tax planning,[1] asset protection, planning for qualified small business stock benefits, income shifting through distributions to descendants, and others. While this…
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Mississippi Medicaid Estate Recovery

None of us know how long we are going to live. This uncertainty makes planning for long term care a daunting task, especially since the average cost of a nursing home in Mississippi is over $7,000 a month.[1] Some may have purchased long-term care insurance to cover most of these costs. For many individuals, applying…
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Chief Counsel Advice Memorandum Debunks Tax Avoidance Scheme Using Trust

In a recent Chief Counsel Advice Memorandum[1] (“CCM”), the office of the IRS Chief Counsel debunks the income taxation, or lack thereof, found in promotional materials promoting a structure known as a “Non-grantor, irrevocable, complex, discretionary, spendthrift trust”, with a note that the structure may be referred to by several other similar but slightly different…
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Your Estate Plan and Life Insurance – A Complementing Pair

It is estimated that approximately 52% of all Americans have some form of life insurance. On the other hand, there are also estimates that only 27% percent of Americans have some form of an estate plan in place. This article provides a brief and simple overview of how the two are not mutually exclusive, and…
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Where Should You form Your New LLC – Creditors’ Rights?

Clients often ask where they should form a new legal entity to obtain the best creditor protection. Blogs, marketing materials, and similar items often tout one or another jurisdiction as the best place to form legal entities. It certainly is the case that state laws differ. One of those areas is in “charging order” protections…
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[**Practice Alert: Corporate Transparency Act is Here: What You Need to Know**](https://esapllc.com/practice-alert-cta-mar-2024/)
[**Practice Alert: Corporate Transparency Act is Here: What You Need to Know**](https://esapllc.com/practice-alert-cta-mar-2024/)