Membership Meeting | The Post-Divorce SLAT: How to Avoid Income Tax Entanglements
Program Description and Benefits:
The irrevocable trust for the benefit a spouse – sometimes called a “spousal lifetime access trust” or “SLAT” – is a popular technique for transferring wealth of a grantor’s estate while retaining indirect access to trust assets through the spouse beneficiary. The technique works well and can even succeed brilliantly so long as the spouses are happily married. But if the spouses divorce, it can turn disastrous. In particular, if the ex-spouse remains a beneficiary, then the SLAT might continue to be taxed to the grantor. Few grantors welcome the prospect of being taxed on income that belongs to an ex-spouse. This presentation will discuss techniques for avoiding post-divorce income tax entanglements.
Speaker Biography:
Austin Bramwell is a partner of Milbank LLP in New York and the co-Practice Group Leader of their Trusts & Estates Group, as well as an Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, where he teaches income taxation of trusts and estates. In 2017 and 2018, he served in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy. Mr. Bramwell serves as co-chair, estates and trusts, of the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association Tax Section. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, where he serves on the Washington Affairs Committee, and an Academician of The International Academy of Estates and Trusts Law. Mr. Bramwell earned his J.D. cum laude from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut. He clerked for the Hon. Timothy M. Tymkovich, past Chief Judge of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Logistics:
- There is no cost for members to register; $80 for guests and emeritus members
- Closest Metro: Metro Center
- Limited parking is available in the building for a fee.
- Registration and networking begin at 5 pm and the program begins at 5:20 pm.
- Reception following the presentation.
- Guests are warmly welcome when accompanying a member host.
- Members that register but do not attend without 24-hour cancellation will be billed a no-show fee of $80.
