Editor’s note: This is part nine of an ongoing series about using trusts and LLCs in estate planning, asset protection and tax planning. The effectiveness of these powerful tools — especially for asset protection and tax planning — depends very much on how they are configured to work together and whether certain types of control over assets and property are surrendered by the property owner. See below for links to the other articles in the series.
Political candidates occasionally promise to get rid of the “death tax,” by which they mean the estate tax. “Doing away with the death tax” makes a solid soundbite for an aspiring politician because no one likes death and no one likes taxes. However, this populist campaign strategy is a farce and always comes with the major tax string of taxing “unrealized appreciation upon death under the capital gains tax.”
