Trust Rush
With the fate of the exemption uncertain, McDowell said his clients rushed to meet the deadline during the last few months of 2012, creating billions of dollars’ worth of new trusts. He had to turn away new customers, and hire retirees to handle the crush of paperwork. There were late nights and shortened Christmas vacations. By the end of the year, he said he’d added about 500 trusts to his rolls, more than twice the number in a typical year.
For the richest families, even a $5 million dynasty trust represents only a fraction of their fortunes, so lawyers have invented complicated strategies to squeeze bigger sums into the vehicles — as much as $39 million, according to a presentation by McDowell’s firm published last year. Such aggressive maneuvers, once common, have become rare in recent years, McDowell said.
Office Space
McDowell’s firm now administers trusts worth $14 billion, according to its website, almost all of them originating in other states. An additional $75 billion is overseen by the offices downstairs, each of which is technically a separate trust company catering to just one family. The companies pay rent to McDowell for the office space, and fees for handling paperwork and administrative duties like filing tax returns; McDowell declined to comment on the price of these services. All of these are necessary steps if the families want to prove that the trusts are truly South Dakotan.