Daily Archives: March 29, 2010

Installment sales of assets to grantor trusts indirectly exploit income tax provisions enacted to prevent income shifting at a time when trust income tax rates were much lower than individual tax rates. Specifically, the technique capitalizes on different definitions of “transfer” for transfer tax and grantor trust income tax purposes. The resulting trusts are termed “defective” because the different definitions of “transfer” result in a serendipitous divergence in income and transfer tax treatment when assets are sold by the grantor to his own grantor trust. Continue reading →