Asset Protection - Nevada, Delaware, Alaska, Mars?

The death of emergency Medicaid planning is official. Let us mourn the techniques of the estate planning and elder law bar that allowed elders to qualify for Medicaid benefits despite having significant assets. Due to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (passed in 2006) most planning opportunities now involve five year plans and more complex trust instruments. While we are still working on these more complex trusts, including irrevocable trusts, intentionally defective grantor trusts and the like; the demand for our services at the time of Medicaid application has diminished markedly. Despite the law change in Massachusetts (and Federal law), there are still steps we can take for asset protection for elders at the time of application including promissory notes, certain annuities and special needs trusts for certain family members - Medicaid planning is not entirely hopeless, but the best opportunities for elder law attorneys have been signed away by the governments lawyers and Congress. So, what is a lawyer to do? We are not the type to passively sit by as other lawyers eat our lunch. We have been working diligently for the past several months re-tooling the asset protection aspects of our law firm to be more directly focused on the asset protection needs of high and ultra high net worth individuals who are concerned with protecting assets from all types of judgment creditors. This planning involves the use of trusts, corporate entities and legal jurisdictions where the laws favor the protection of assets (in exchange for bringing new cash to places perhaps not normally thought of as centers of the legal or financial world - like Nevada and Alaska). In the coming weeks I will be participating in significant training and axe sharpening programs to help make sure that our law firm is on the cutting edge of asset protection, not only in the US but also in cooperation with certain off-shore legal jurisdictions where certain planning can be beneficial for particular clients. I leave shortly for a conference in Las Vegas where the Nevada trust industry will woo my estate planning asset protection attention. In a nutshell, asset protection involves transferring legal ownership of assets to another person, in most cases this person is a trustee and under the various state laws (such as Nevada asset protection law) at least of these trustees must be a Nevada trust company. By so transferring the legal ownership, as well as structuring the language and documentation of the trust so that it conforms with state law, you can achieve protection from certain types of creditors over time (in Nevada you can protect assets in as little as two years), including judgment creditors and even spouses in a divorce. Our law firm works cooperatively with Nevada legal counsel to make sure that all asset protection documents conform to Nevada legal requirements as these are not Massachusetts documents. We will be revisiting this topic in much greater detail in the coming months as our law firm will be working diligently to bring our clients up to speed on this exciting estate planning opportunity. The main advantage of Nevada asset protection and other state and countries is the use of charging orders (how creditors are paid in the event of a claim) and certain tax benefits. Not only is this legal, but it is a prudent use of client's resources as it is one of the few ways that we can preserve estate tax planning opportunities while locking in the protection of assets.