| The legal forms available in the US that we can help with include the following: |
Florida Corporations
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A Florida corporations has advantages as a holding company for a Florida asset such as real estate because it is resident for tax purposes. Simple to form and reasonably simple to administer .
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Offshore Corporations
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Offshore corporations, such as corporations formed in certain Caribbean privacy oriented islands, form a barrier that protects anonymity under certain circumstances. Offshore corporations, however, have a limited value in dealing with a bank, which uniformly requires disclosure of the beneficial owner, and have often severe tax consequences to the detriment of profitability.
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Revocable trusts
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We do not, in most circumstances, recommend revocable trusts as they have limited tax effect.
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Irrevocable trusts
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Irrevocable trusts, certainly including generation skipping and ILIT trusts are important US tax instruments and are also a component in trust structures that protect significant families of assets. We use both US and foreign trusts and recommend several variations depending on circumstances.
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Bank trusts
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Money In trust with a bank often implies a bank trustee. Bank trustees are very conservative and have several advantages for this reason. However, bank trustees will not, however indemnified, perform any complicated instructions, or take any action that the bank percieves to be risky. We recommend bank trusts when the instructions are simple and hinge on extremely clear conditions.
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Tax havens
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Assets and specifically bank accounts in tax havens tend to perform very poorly compared to inflation in any developed country. We rarely recommend placing large quantities of money in a tax haven, and prefer to recommend brokerage or other financial instruments in a developed country where the money will outperform the tax haven by an average of 12%.
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Insurance
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We recommend insurance only in the context of a tax deferring instrument, such as within the context of an ILIT (Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust). Insurance tends to have less flexibility than other options such as market accounts held in corporations or through trusts or both.
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Protectors
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Protectors are crucial to successful construction and development of a trust over a span of years. We recommend protectors almost universally when asset quantities justify them and when there is any chance of potential claimants, benefactors, or heirs disputing the validity of a trust or its instructions.
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Wills
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Beyond a certain asset value we do not recommend a will. Current estate tax in all developed countries prohibit the use of this particular estate transfer method.
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Gifts
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In the tax codes that we are familiar with gifts have a limited use in transferring an estate to later generations. We universally recommend gifts, but view them as having decreasing relevance as the asset value of the potential estate increases
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