X-Message-Number: 14115 From: "John de Rivaz" <> References: <> Subject: Re: Taking it with you AND helping cryonics Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 11:10:03 +0100 I wonder if it would be possible to create a "manufactured product" here. Suppose that it cost $25,000 in lawyers fees to create the trust document and you think that 100 people may buy one in the next ten years (or whatever period you set) then you can set the price at $250 If you sell more you make a profit, less then not - as with any manufacturing operation. If course there is always the risk that the lawyer will take fees and in the end you and he both agree that the project won't work anyway because of facts about the law he has researched and discovered for you. The thing that is not clear to me in your initial article is how as originator of the trust, the owner, can take back money from it. In the UK at any rate such trusts do exist for maintaining disabled offspring of the settler. The income benefits the child (who is usually by then an adult) but once the beneficiary perishes, the principal has to go to a registered charity - it couldn't go to a sibling or grandchild of the settler. The UK's Inland Revenue does gleefully take a fairly naziish attitude too to some trusts. I know of another case where the settler wanted to leave funds for her son and granddaughter, but didn't want the funds to be stolen with the help of the law by someone outside the family if either relation got divorced. She left the funds in a charitable trust for the benefit of a London hospital, but the interest was to be split between her son and his daughter whilst he still lived, and then for the daughter absolutely after he was obliterated. The law in the UK states that gifts to charity are tax exempt. However the UK's Inland revenue decided that as two individuals were benefiting, they charged death tax on the basis of 40% on anything over UKP250k on the grandmother's death, and when the father died a couple of years later they charged another 40% on what remained. That is to say the daughter only got a small uplift of income when her father died and when she dies the hospital will get 36% of the original capital bequeathed (less a single use of the allowance already used up by the grandmother's demise). (because it has lost 40% twice) Now I am not sure what would happen with a trust outside any other non-US country the settler may live in. I imagine that there would be no death tax benefit on a bequest to it. However once the funds were there, and assuming the settler was reanimated would he be able to get the funds back? There is the inevitable variable that US law may not permit it, but going past that there is the added question of whether the reanimated person would be allowed to stay in the US, or deported to his country of birth who may not even then recognise him as a person. If he were allowed back, would his government allow him to keep the money? Unanswerable questions I am sure. They do point to one solution though. If you want to take your money with you, you have to split it as thinly as you can and try many different routes. For that reason, any particular route must be cheap and easy. Even $250 may be too much. If you can invest say $2,000 in Invesco tech in such a trust and leave it alone then this is probably the route to go, but if you have to pay a massive front end loading on each such independent plan then this "cluster bomb" approach will be prohibitively expensive. "Think small, grow big." -- Sincerely, John de Rivaz my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, my singles club for people in Cornwall, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other projects: http://geocities.yahoo.com/longevityrpt ----- Original Message ----- > Message #14112 > Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 19:55:04 -0500 > From: david pizer <> > Subject: Taking it with you AND helping cryonics > > I am working with an attorney in Phoenix who I feel is very honest and cost > effective. If anyone is interested, I will give you his name and number. > Or, if you have questions that you think will be helpful in this planning > stage, let me have them and I will ask him and get back to you. I will be > glad to share information with other cryonicists who have interests in this > area. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14115