Crummey trust

In the United States a Crummey trust (named for the first person to use such a structure. see: Crummey et al. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 397 F.2d 82, (9th Cir.1968) is a trust for the benefit of individuals into which gifts are made in a manner qualifying them for exclusion from the unified gift and estate tax.

Normally, gifts to minors are subject to parental / guardian control until the age of majority. In order to delay the transfer of control beyond the age of 18, the funds must be placed in trust. However, the annual gift exclusion ($14,000 per individual and $28,000 per married couple as of 2014) from the gift tax is only available for gifts of so-called current interests. Normally, a gift into a trust that comes under control of the beneficiary at a future date does not constitute a current interest.

A Crummey trust achieves the desired treatment by offering the recipient a window of time (often 30 days) to take immediate control of the gift. (The control offered only applies to the current gift - by assumption, an amount no greater than the annual exclusion amount - not the entire trust.) If the recipient fails to do so during that window, the gift becomes part of the trust, and is subject to the trust's distribution conditions. However, since the recipient had the opportunity to receive the funds outside of the trust, the gift is deemed to be a current interest, subjecting it to the annual exclusion.

The expectation of future annual gifts under the same mechanism (or the expectation of the withholding of such future gifts if the recipient exerts control over the gift) may motivate the recipient to relinquish control of the funds into the trust.

The Crummey Trust is named after D. Clifford Crummey, who, in the 1960s, first came up with the idea. The U.S. Tax Court found this action legal in 1968, and the nickname "Crummey Power" stuck.