The Private Retirement Trust (“PRT”) is a flexible, tax-neutral retirement planning tool designed to help California residents — including non-U.S.-citizen residents — fund and administer a nonqualified Private Retirement Plan in a way that leverages California’s unique creditor exemption statute. Although the statute is […]

Properly funding a Private Retirement Trust (“PRT”) is crucial to preserving the exemption protection provided to private retirement plans under California Code of Civil Procedure § 704.115(b). The statute allows you to recharacterize nonexempt personal assets — assets that can be taken by creditors […]

Exemption planning is rarely at the top of anyone’s to-do list. For California residents, though, it should be. The generous exemption protection provided for Private Retirement Plans under California Code of Civil Procedure § 704.115(b) preserves and protects retirement plan assets at the expense of […]

To qualify for the exemption protection of California Code of Civil Procedure § 704.115(b), a Private Retirement Plan must be principally or primarily designed and used for retirement purposes. Subjective intent alone is not enough. A person cannot simply designate certain assets as retirement […]

Meet Sam, an Orange County business owner who was just named as a defendant in a lawsuit. Sam is 50 years old. He has spent the last few years thinking about his future retirement and his desire to establish a Private Retirement Trust, but, […]

A properly designed Private Retirement Plan is not enough to capture the exemption protection of CCP § 704.115. The plan must also be principally or primarily used for retirement purposes. The statute itself does not provide any rules regarding plan administration that, if followed, […]

Safeguarding retirement assets with a Private Retirement Plan is a must, but doing so with an Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) qualified plan is not always an easy feat. ERISA compliance requires strict adherence to a substantial body of statutory regulations that frequently […]

Not all Private Retirement Trusts (“PRTs”) are created equal. To illustrate this point — and the importance of checking off every box when creating a PRT — it is worth examining a recent case in which a Private Retirement Trust failed to survive judicial […]

Exemption planning is a safe and effective wealth-preservation strategy, and it is fundamental to estate planning. Done well, it prepares you for the next financial disaster — whether self-inflicted or just bad luck — before it ever arrives. The first step to protecting yourself, […]

What Makes a Private Retirement Trust Valid Under CCP § 704.115(b)?

For a Private Retirement Trust (“PRT”) to be valid and effective, its Retirement Plan Agreement (“Plan”) must possess certain attributes and ingredients. Assets in a Plan are exempt from creditors under CCP § 704.115(b) only […]