Lifetime Gifting Strategies

Lifetime giving can be an important part of a well-rounded estate plan. Here are four tips for maximizing gifting strategies:

1. Minimize gift tax with a grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRAT), and create rolling GRATs to minimize mortality risk.
2. Diversify the funding for charitable lead annuity trusts (CLATs) to avoid the assets being depleted.
3. Consider an intra-family loan or intra-family mortgage loan.
4. Transfer property expected to appreciate to an intentionally defective grantor trust (IDGT) through an installment sale.

See Philip Herzberg, Cutting-Edge Estate Planning Strategies for Effective Wealth Transfer, Journal of Financial Planning, Feb. 2015.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.