Alaska has made two sweeping reforms to its trust laws in an effort to position itself as the most sophisticated quot;offshorequot; trust jurisdiction for wealthy U.S. citizens and non-U.S. persons holding substantial U.S. property or stock. This article describes Alaska's departure from the...

In the last decade, grantor trusts have become a cornerstone of many sophisticated estate plans. Although clients and their advisors employ grantor trusts with great frequency and success, few taxpayers and not all estate planning professionals are fully conversant with the income tax reporting...

Throw a stone into a room full of law professors, and it is virtually impossible to hit someone who will defend perpetual trusts. This essay takes up the most recent objections lodged by Lawrence Waggoner, Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Law, and Reporter for the...

Ithaca Trust Co. v. United States, a section 2055 case, held that the annuity tables had to be used to value the life estate of decedent's wife, the non-charitable beneficiary, despite the death of his wife before the due date for filing the decedent's estate tax return. Since that opinion, some...

It is this author's contention that Ithaca Trust holds that when valuation must be computed by actuarial methods, all facts, except for those necessary to use the tables, must be ignored. This requirement is so despite the fact that an actual facts-and-circumstances analysis would likely produce...

This Article discusses Ithaca Trust and that case's emphasis on the integrity of actuarial tables for estate tax valuation purposes. The author argues that application of actuarial table values for estate tax valuation is the best means to value estates where use of tables is mandated, despite...