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A grantor-retained annuity trust (commonly referred to by the acronym GRAT), is a financial instrument commonly used in the United States to make large financial gifts to family members without paying a U.S. gift tax. [1]
A grantor transfers property into an irrevocable trust in exchange for the right to receive fixed payments at least annually, based on original fair market value of the property transferred. [2] At the end of a specified time, any remaining value in the trust is passed on to a beneficiary of the trust as a gift. Beneficiaries are generally close family members of the grantor, such as children or grandchildren, who are prohibited from being named beneficiaries of another estate freeze technique, the grantor retained income trust.[ clarification needed ] If a grantor dies before the trust period ends, the assets in the GRAT are included in the grantor's estate by operation of I.R.C. § 2036, eliminating any potential gift tax benefit; this is the GRAT's main weakness as a tax avoidance mechanism.
The United States Internal Revenue Service has a number of regulations governing how the remaining value of the trust at the end of the term (or at the death of the grantor) is taxed. When the GRAT is first set up, a "gift value" of the GRAT is calculated. The gift value is set equal to the initial contribution to the GRAT plus a theoretical interest earned on the principal, minus the annuity payments that would be made through the end of the term. The theoretical rate of interest is determined by IRS regulations. [3] The rate is set equal to 120% of the federal mid-term rate during the month that the GRAT is established.
To realize a tax benefit, the sum of the scheduled annuity payments of a GRAT is set to be about equal to the principal plus theoretical interest. Thus, for tax purposes, the initially calculated gift value is zero, since what will be paid back to the donor in annuity payments is anticipated to be about equal to what the donor invested, plus interest. If a GRAT is funded with highly volatile assets, it is possible that the actual interest earned on the assets will be substantially higher than the IRS theoretical interest. Thus at the end of the term, the value remaining in the GRAT may still be large, even though the initial IRS calculation suggests that it should have been zero. This remaining value is then passed on to the beneficiary without incurring a gift tax.
The Wealth Transfer Group owns a patent covering different methods for managing SOGRATs. A SOGRAT is a GRAT that is at least partially funded with stock options. The patent number is U.S. Patent 6,567,790 , and is entitled "Establishing and managing grantor retained annuity trusts funded by nonqualified stock options". On 12 January 2011, the director of the USPTO initiated a reexamination of US patent 6,567,790. [5] The reexamination serial number is 90/009,868.
A ProPublica report detailed how several ultra-wealthy families exploited the GRAT to avoided potentially billions in estate taxes. [6]
Grantor-retained annuity trusts were used by controversial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to help his wealthy clients avoid taxes. [7]
The United States of America has separate federal, state, and local governments with taxes imposed at each of these levels. Taxes are levied on income, payroll, property, sales, capital gains, dividends, imports, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. In 2020, taxes collected by federal, state, and local governments amounted to 25.5% of GDP, below the OECD average of 33.5% of GDP.
In law, a trust is a relationship in which the holder of property gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for the benefit of another person or group of persons who are termed as 'beneficiary'. In the English common law tradition, the party who entrusts the property is known as the "settlor", the party to whom the property is entrusted is known as the "trustee", the party for whose benefit the property is entrusted is known as the "beneficiary", and the entrusted property itself is known as the "corpus" or "trust property". A testamentary trust is created by a will and arises after the death of the settlor. An inter vivos trust is created during the settlor's lifetime by a trust instrument. A trust may be revocable or irrevocable; an irrevocable trust can be "broken" (revoked) by a judicial proceeding or by consent of the settlor and the beneficiaries.
A charitable trust is an irrevocable trust established for charitable purposes. In some jurisdictions, it is a more specific term than "charitable organization". A charitable trust enjoys varying degrees of tax benefits in most countries and also generates goodwill. Some important terminology in charitable trusts includes the term "corpus", referring to the assets with which the trust is funded, and the term "donor," which is the person donating assets to a charity.
In common law and statutory law, a life estate is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death, when the property rights may revert to the original owner or to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant". The person who will take over the rights upon death is said to have a "remainder" interest and is known as a "remainderman".
An individual retirement account (IRA) in the United States is a form of pension provided by many financial institutions that provides tax advantages for retirement savings. It is a trust that holds investment assets purchased with a taxpayer's earned income for the taxpayer's eventual benefit in old age. An individual retirement account is a type of individual retirement arrangement as described in IRS Publication 590, Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs). Other arrangements include employer-established benefit trusts and individual retirement annuities, by which a taxpayer purchases an annuity contract or an endowment contract from a life insurance company.
A Roth IRA is an individual retirement account (IRA) under United States law that is generally not taxed upon distribution, provided certain conditions are met. The principal difference between Roth IRAs and most other tax-advantaged retirement plans is that rather than granting a tax reduction for contributions to the retirement plan, qualified withdrawals from the Roth IRA plan are tax-free, and growth in the account is tax-free.
Universal life insurance is a type of cash value life insurance, sold primarily in the United States. Under the terms of the policy, the excess of premium payments above the current cost of insurance is credited to the cash value of the policy, which is credited each month with interest. The policy is debited each month by a cost of insurance (COI) charge as well as any other policy charges and fees drawn from the cash value, even if no premium payment is made that month. Interest credited to the account is determined by the insurer but has a contractual minimum rate. When an earnings rate is pegged to a financial index such as a stock, bond or other interest rate index, the policy is an "Indexed universal life" contract. Such policies offer the advantage of guaranteed level premiums throughout the insured's lifetime at a substantially lower premium cost than an equivalent whole life policy at first. The cost of insurance always increases, as is found on the cost index table. That not only allows for easy comparison of costs between carriers but also works well in irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs) since cash is of no consequence.
A gift tax or known originally as inheritance tax is a tax imposed on the transfer of ownership of property during the giver's life. The United States Internal Revenue Service says that a gift is "Any transfer to an individual, either directly or indirectly, where full compensation is not received in return."
For households and individuals, gross income is the sum of all wages, salaries, profits, interest payments, rents, and other forms of earnings, before any deductions or taxes. It is opposed to net income, defined as the gross income minus taxes and other deductions.
Prior to 2006, a private annuity trust (PAT) was an arrangement to enable the value of highly appreciated assets, such as real estate, collectables or an investment portfolio, to be realized without directly selling them and incurring substantial taxes from their sale.
Substantially equal periodic payments (SEPP) are one of the exceptions in the United States Internal Revenue Code that allows a retiree to receive payments before age 591⁄2 from a retirement plan or deferred annuity without the 10% early distribution penalty under certain circumstances.
Irwin v. Gavit, 268 U.S. 161 (1925), was a case before the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the taxability, under United States tax law, of a divided interest in a bequest. It is notable for the following holding:
Residence trusts in the United States are used to transfer a grantor's residence out of the grantor's estate at a low gift tax value. Once the trust is funded with the grantor's residence, the residence and any future appreciation of the residence are excluded from the grantor's estate, if the grantor survives the term of the trust, as explained below.
United States trust law is the body of law that regulates the legal instrument for holding wealth known as a trust.
A charitable remainder unitrust is an irrevocable trust created under the authority of the United States Internal Revenue Code § 664 ("Code"). This special, irrevocable trust has two primary characteristics: (1) Once established, the CRUT distributes a fixed percentage of the value of its assets to a non-charitable beneficiary ; and (2) At the expiration of a specified time, the remaining balance of the CRUT's assets is distributed to charity. The trustee determines the fair market value of the CRUT's assets at the time of contribution and thereafter on the applicable valuation date. The fixed annuity percentage must be at least 5% and no more than 50% of the fair market value of the assets in the corpus. The remainder must be at least 10% of the fair market value of the assets contributed to the CRUT. Code Section 664(d)(1) sets the federal income tax requirements for a charitable remainder unitrust.
In economics, a gift tax is the tax on money or property that one living person or corporate entity gives to another. A gift tax is a type of transfer tax that is imposed when someone gives something of value to someone else. The transfer must be gratuitous or the receiving party must pay a lesser amount than the item's full value to be considered a gift. Items received upon the death of another are considered separately under the inheritance tax. Many gifts are not subject to taxation because of exemptions given in tax laws. The gift tax amount varies by jurisdiction, and international comparison of rates is complex and fluid.
A tax patent is a patent that discloses and claims a system or method for reducing or deferring taxes. Tax patents have been granted predominantly in the United States but can be granted in other countries as well. They are considered to be a form of business method patent. They are also called "tax planning patents", "tax strategy patents", and "tax shelter patents". In September 2011, President Barack Obama signed legislation passed by the U.S. Congress that effectively prohibits the granting of tax patents in general.
The Wealth Transfer Group is a consulting firm that provides estate planning services. They serve only clients with estates worth more than US$10,000,000.
In the United States, the estate tax is a federal tax on the transfer of the estate of a person who dies. The tax applies to property that is transferred by will or, if the person has no will, according to state laws of intestacy. Other transfers that are subject to the tax can include those made through a trust and the payment of certain life insurance benefits or financial accounts. The estate tax is part of the federal unified gift and estate tax in the United States. The other part of the system, the gift tax, applies to transfers of property during a person's life.
Walton v. Commissioner, 115 T.C. 589 (2000), a decision of the United States Tax Court in favor of taxpayer Audrey J. Walton, "ruled that a grantor's right to receive a fixed amount for a term of years, if that right is a qualified interest within the meaning of Section 2702(b), is valued for gift tax purposes under Section 7520, without regard to the life expectancy of the transferor." More simply, a grantor's estate's contingent interest in a grantor-created annuity upon the grantor's death does not constitute a gift to anyone; but rather, is a retained interest of the grantor.