授予人保留年金 Trust (commonly called a “GRAT”) is a special trust used to pass ownership of assets to children or other family members after a specified number of years. Potentially, GRAT可以为赠与人节省大量的赠予税, as well as remove the assets from the grantor’s gross estate for estate tax purposes. 当估值率达到时，grat可以表现得特别好, 即7520利率, 是低利率吗 have been at historic lows in recent months.
A GRAT is created when a person (the Grantor) transfers one or more assets, 哪些预计会升值, into an irrevocable trust and retains the right to an annuity payment for a fixed number of years. 在那个时期结束的时候, any assets remaining in the GRAT are distributed to the beneficiaries (the “remainder beneficiaries”) who were designated by the Grantor in the trust document. The annuity payment is usually expressed as a fixed percentage of the original value of the assets transferred into the GRAT.
所有收入及增值, in excess of that required to make the annuity payments to the Grantor, 为剩余受益人的利益而累积. Consequently, 将资产转移给受益人是可能的, 当信托终止时, have values far greater than their original values when transferred into the trust and, 更重要的是, 这远远超过了转让资产的赠予税价值.
The gift tax value of the transferred assets is determined using the “subtraction method” when the trust is created and funded. That is, the gift tax value equals the value of the assets transferred into the trust at the time of the transfer minus the value of the interest retained by the Grantor, i.e.，年金支付的价值. The value of the retained stream of annuity payments is determined using actuarial tables which take into account the number of years the GRAT will exist. 为精算估值之目的, it is assumed that the trust assets will earn income at a rate set under Section 7520 (“7520 rate”) of the Internal Revenue Code. 费率按月变化.
The general effect of the 7520 rate on a GRAT’s performance is that the average annual appreciation and income in excess of the 7520 rate is transferred to the remaindermen free of estate and gift taxes. Thus, it is more likely for a GRAT to be successful in transferring appreciation when the 7520 rate is low. 2012年1月的7520汇率是1.4%——这是有史以来最低的.
如上所述, the annuity payout rate may be a fixed percentage of the original value of the assets transferred into the GRAT. 另一个选择, 税法允许的, is to provide for the annuity percentage to increase or decrease in a systematic manner each year; however, 每年的增减幅度不得超过20%. 无论哪种方法, the payout percentages for the annual payments can be calculated and scheduled at the time of the creation of the GRAT in such a way as to produce a “remainder” value (i.e., the actuarial value of the assets eventually to pass to the remainder beneficiaries) of zero. Thus the value of the gift to the remainder beneficiaries, for gift tax purposes, is zero.
这里有个陷阱. 如授予人在选定的GRAT期限届满前去世, GRAT资产的价值, generally, 按授予人去世之日的价值计算, 是否包括在授予人的总遗产内，以缴付遗产税.
让我们来看一个例子. 假设授予人转账2美元,000,000 of a single stock into a five-year GRAT with level annual payments to be made. GRAT成立于2011年12月，当时7520税率为1.6%, and therefore, 产生零的应税赠予, GRAT将要求每年支付419美元,401. Those payments are made using any cash (from dividends, for example) and stock in the GRAT. 如果股票以每年10%的稳定速度升值, the assets passing to the remaindermen at the end of the five-year GRAT term will be worth over $660,000. The Grantor will have neither paid any gift tax to transfer that $660,没有使用任何赠与税豁免.
A GRAT is structured so that the Grantor is taxed on all income and realized gains on trust assets even if those amounts are greater than the trust’s annuity payments. This also means that the use of an appreciated asset to satisfy an annuity payment is not a taxable event and does not generate any taxable gain.
正如我们目前所知，grat是“濒危”信托. Recently, there have been efforts to enact legislation tightening the rules on GRATs. 在他的2012年预算提案中, President Obama has suggested that the tax law be changed to require a minimum GRAT term of ten years, making GRATs less likely to be successful for older taxpayers due to the requirement of surviving the trust term. Several recent legislative proposals have called for GRATs to be structured to produce a minimum gift, perhaps as high as 10% of the value of the assets transferred to the GRAT. With these threats of legislative change and with the historically low 7520 rates, now is the time to consider using a GRAT as an estate planning and wealth transfer strategy.
作者:克里斯汀·布坎南和 黛安•汤普森.