Thread: Trust Question
View Single Post
Old May 25, 2012, 07:42 AM   #5
Skans
Senior Member
 
Join Date: November 20, 2008
Posts: 11,132
You can't "sell" a Trust like a sole shareholder can sell a corporation or LLC. They are completely different animals. Trustees have a fiduciary obligation to the beneficiaries. States trust laws revolver around this concept.

If a Trustee tries to sell the trust together with its assets by taking money to change the names of the trustees and perhaps even the beneficiaries, that trustee would be acting contrary to most states' trust laws. If BATFE got wind of this, they would have good grounds to have the trust declared invalid and then possibly confiscate the trust assets. In my opinion, this is about as advisable as owning one company that sells "Pre-81" DIAS's and another company that sells M16 parts sets.

Willie raises a good point about LLC's. I can't think of anything that would prohibit someone from selling an LLC with NFA items in it - seems like all you would need to do is notify BATFE on the location of the items and possibly the name of the new manager. If this can be done, you might be able to avoid the $200 transfer tax per NFA item.

Quote:
I've put airplanes into LLC ownerships, and when they are sold, we do not do a FAA ownership change, we just change the Members of the LLC. No sales tax... etc. Not a "sale", a change of members. Makes it cheaper and keeps it easy.
Ditto with real estate to avoid transfer taxes, however, the State has caught onto this and I believe has plugged that "loophole".

Last edited by Skans; May 25, 2012 at 07:53 AM.
Skans is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.02839 seconds with 8 queries