Frist set up blind trust for children (letting them avoid the estate tax)

[deadparrot]

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., set up a qualified blind trust allowing his children to avoid the estate tax.

The trust includes at least $350,000 worth of shares of HCA, the healthcare corporation founded by his family and was created with assets owned by Frist's mother before she died, The Hill, a Washington newspaper, reported Friday.

The fund allows the Frist family to claim a generation-skipping-tax exemption. The report said such qualified blind trust funds are a common way to bypass the estate tax.

Frist has his stock assets in a primary blind trust. The Senate Ethics Committee approved a second qualified blind trust from his mother's estate in December 2000. A Frist adviser told The Hill, it was Frist's mother's wishes the assets be set aside for her grandchildren.

http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=154042&cat=World

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

1. Pretty standard practice for protecting assets...

But, without an autopsy, I question the "blind" trust part when it comes to Frist.

[leesa]

4. LOL. Perfect response. He did peek at the last blind trust, didn't he.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

5. Ya, that "blind" trust really could track the mylar balloon.

[WCGreen]

12. Lordy Lordy the viel of blindness has lifted from my eyes...

I can see the money.... I can feel the money....

[sweepster]

2. The kennedies have the same trust

Standard practice with the elites republican or democrats.

[sweetladybug]

9. sweepster, you're right. But, at least the kennedies are in government to

help the low and middle income folks (and of course these citizens make up the majority of the households in our country) Republicans choose to help the rich get richer and the middle and low income people to get poorer. Any low and middle income person that votes Republican are either totally uninformed, trusting the wrong person in politics to help them or they are just complete fools.

[HereSince1628]

3. If you have wealth to pass on this is the way to do it.

There is no point pissing about this. It is legitimate.

If you look around the US Senate you'll probably find most Democrats do the same.

[uniden]

6. as long as it is legal

it's fine with me. Why pay 55% in taxes when you can avoid it?

[maximovich]

10. Why? So We Have a Fuctioning Democracy, That's Why...

Jesus Christ... did ya think Democracy and all we have in this supposedly great country was Free?

[uniden]

14. so

when you do your taxes, how much do you pay? Do you pay the amount that the accountant says, or do you double that?

[ZippyTeapoe]

7. Why do they claim to be for the little guy

When the little guy they are for is their children?? I thought the Righties wanted to eliminate the Estate Tax altogether, and if they have a loophole, why bother?

[Bridget Burke]

11. All this is just such a bother!

Without the Estate Tax, the difficult lives of the super-rich would be much less stressful. And many financial advisors & lawyers would be out of work.

[FormerDittoHead]

8. IMO trust law (+ "foundations") should be abolished..

France manages not to have any trust laws, yet somehow remains an industrialized country.

Trusts and foundations have one purpose - to perpetuate wealth to those who didn't earn it, circumvent inheritance taxes and create a perpetual upper class not unlike the Aristocracy which the Framers were so careful to ban from our country.

[lumpy]

13. Never - ever tax trust that Reagan managed to

get through in the 80s to protect the scion of the US aristocracy ?