FAMILY BANK TRUSTS

Families worry about lawsuits which may imperil assets.  Families worry about transfer taxes such as the death tax and gift taxes reducing assets available to children and grandchildren.  Families worry that a divorce of a family member will cause hard saved and invested assets to go outside the family. In a perfect world our assets would be protected for the use of our spouse and family from law suits, divorce and all future estate and gift taxes.

A Family Bank Trust, a term coined by our principal Bill Conway, is an irrevocable trust which allows families to make gifts to the trust in any amount up to five million dollars in a lump sum or in increments over the lifetime of the trustmakers. The assets in the trust will be protected against future lawsuits, threats, divorce, gift and estate taxation.

Should the assets increase in value over the years, the full value of the account is available to the family for the life of the trustmakers, but will be excluded in estates at the death of the trustmakers and future generations as long as they remain in trust. Therefore, the full value of years of growth will move the beneficiaries of the Family Bank Trust without any estate tax ever being paid. These assets in the Family Bank Trust can be available as loans or as bequests to family members for multiple future generations.

The result of the creation of this special Family Bank Trust can be profound.  The Family Bank Trust can grow and be available to all family members without ever being reduced by estate gift taxes no matter what tax law changes may be brought by future political administrations and provides valuable protection to the family and their assets during the life of the trustmaker.