Certified Public Accountants

A CPA’s business is complicated.

Tax laws and regulations rules change. Each client is a snowflake – no two are the same.

Many CPAs enjoy the complexity; the daily challenges that cause you to use your critical thinking skills and grow as business professionals. At times, your work is like a giant puzzle. Eventually, everything comes together right at the very end.

The common thread is that your clients look to you for the answer.

As a trusted resource, adding Deferred Sales Trusts knowledge to your practice has a twofold benefit. It provides a broader array of options to current clients and provides a market differentiator to CPAs looking to expand their practice with diversified options.

Tax Deferral Strategy for Your Clients

If your clients are considering the sale of an appreciated asset such as a business or real estate investment, they may face capital gains taxes. A modern, yet proven and tested IRC 453 based strategy known as the Deferred Sales Trust (DST) is a legal contract between your client and a third-party trust in which they sell an asset to the Trust in exchange for the Deferred Sales Trust’s contractual promise to pay your client a fixed sum over a prearranged future period. And, the contract may be amended in the future should circumstances change.

A DST gives your client the ability to control their capital gains tax exposure, reinvestment terms and income replacement needs.

Many CPA’s view their role as a means to protect their clients from audits and the uncomfortable potential outcomes from those audits. If you ask your clients however, most of the time their desire is for you to advise them how to legally minimize their tax burden to the greatest extent possible.

Perhaps you have clients looking to sell their businesses, looking to exit from investment real estate ownership, or looking for an alternative to a 1031 exchange. You, like your competitors,’ can evaluate the limited number of other options: Charitable Trusts; Opportunity Zones; Delaware Statutory Trusts. What if there was another way? Perhaps a better way?

There are several other key benefits you can review with your clients.

DST Comparison Scenarios

Explore some of our one-page analysis case studies that help to showcase the benefits of the modern Deferred Sales Trust strategy in real life scenarios. In the section below, you will find case study worksheets that reveal hypothetical scenarios using the DST strategy. These case studies cover different geolocations or compare different assets. Click on any of the images below to download the full view PDF scenario.

Selling Crypto Currency vs Highly Concentrated Stock

Selling Primary Residence in Different States

Interested in more case studies that dive deeper into the benefits of the Deferred Sales Trust? Click any of the buttons below to find additional information.

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