Wealthy parents or benefactors of the family keep the original appreciated assets until their death, leaving those assets to an heir. Neither the current federal or local tax code require the original asset holders or the heir to pay taxes on the growth in value up to that point.
Billionaires (usually) don't sell valuable stock. So how do they afford the daily expenses of life, whether it's a new pleasure boat or a social media company? They borrow against their stock. This revolving door of credit allows them to buy what they want without incurring a capital gains tax.
One type of trust that helps protect assets is an intentionally defective grantor trust (IDGT). Any assets or funds put into an IDGT aren't taxable to the grantor (owner) for gift, estate, generation-skipping transfer tax, or trust purposes.
What Is the Estate Tax Exemption? The federal estate tax exclusion exempts from the value of an estate up to $13.61 million in 2024, up from $12.92 million in 2023. 1 Only the value over these thresholds is subject to estate tax.
The long-favored grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRATs) can confer big tax savings during recessions. These trusts pay a fixed annuity during the trust term, which is usually two years, and any appreciation of the assets' value is not subject to estate tax.
The trust fund loophole refers to the “stepped-up basis rule” in U.S. tax law. The rule is a tax exemption that lets you use a trust to transfer appreciated assets to the trust's beneficiaries without paying the capital gains tax. Your “basis” in an asset is the price you paid for the asset.
Wealthy people have long used trusts to stash their money and pass it on to the next generation. That includes billionaire Rupert Murdoch, whose trust is making headlines as his family battles for control of his media empire. But it's not only the ultrarich who can take advantage of what a trust can offer.
In some years, billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and George Soros paid no federal income taxes at all. Billionaires avoid these taxes by taking out special ultra-low-interest loans available only to them and using their assets as collateral.
Strategies to transfer wealth without a heavy tax burden include creating an irrevocable trust, engaging in annual gifting, forming a family limited partnership, or forming a generation-skipping transfer trust.
Tax loss harvesting is when you sell securities for less than their cost basis, or the price you originally paid for them. This captures losses to offset gains you may have realized in other investments, including the sale of real estate, a business or another large asset.
Ideally, you buy assets that will grow in value on a tax-deferred basis and yield passive income. Passive income is money that you don't have to work to earn. Dividends earned from stocks, for example, are another form of passive income. Once you've bought appreciating assets, the next step is to borrow against them.
In both scenarios, using a Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT) may be the best strategy. A QPRT transfers an interest in the property to a trust for your children but gives you control over the property. However, you or your children must live in it during the QPRT term.
More rich people are using 'secret' trusts and LLCs to hide money from their spouses. Secret trusts and LLCs are increasingly common ways wealthy people are shielding assets in divorce. Trusts and offshore accounts controlled by a shadowy company.
“It is a simple fact that billionaires in America can live very extraordinarily well completely tax-free off their wealth,” law professor Edward J. McCaffery writes. They can do so by borrowing large sums against their unrealized capital gains, without generating taxable income.
It suggests that wealth built up over one generation can often be lost by the third generation due to a lack of financial education, mismanagement, or squandering. This has been observed on a global scale, with societies across the globe displaying this trend.
The best way to avoid the inheritance tax is to manage assets before death. To eliminate or limit the amount of inheritance tax beneficiaries might have to pay, consider: Giving away some of your assets to potential beneficiaries before death. Each year, you can gift a certain amount to each person tax-free.
Income is taxed to you, not your heirs.
With a GRAT, all income gains and losses will flow back to you as the grantor and be included on your personal income tax return. This allows more wealth to shift to heirs, because neither they nor the trust will have income tax responsibility.
You can avoid capital gains tax when you sell your primary residence by buying another house and using the 121 home sale exclusion. In addition, the 1031 like-kind exchange allows investors to defer taxes when they reinvest the proceeds from the sale of an investment property into another investment property.
There are 2 primary methods of transferring wealth, either gifting during lifetime or leaving an inheritance at death. Individuals may transfer up to $13.99 million (as of 2025) during their lifetime or at death without incurring any federal gift or estate taxes. This is referred to as your lifetime exemption.
Others will object to taxing the wealthy unless they actually use their gains, but many of the wealthiest actually do use their gains through the borrowing loophole: They get rich, borrow against those gains, consume the borrowing, and do not pay any tax.
Rich people frequently place their homes and other financial assets in trusts to reduce taxes and give their wealth to their beneficiaries. They may also do this to protect their property from divorce proceedings and frivolous lawsuits.
There are certain irrevocable trusts that are intended to last for only a specific term of years. Two examples are grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs) and qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs). “GRATs are a common way for people to minimize taxes on financial gifts to their beneficiaries,” says Ruhe.