Top Democratic senators urged Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday to crack down on the use of trusts by ultra-wealthy Americans to dodge paying their fair share in taxes.
“Billionaires and multi-millionaires use trusts to shift wealth to their heirs tax-free, dodging federal estate and gift taxes,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., told Yellen in a letter.
They are doing this, the senators write, “in the open: their wealth managers are bragging about how their tax dodging tricks will be more effective in the current economy.”
The senators state the wealthiest millionaires and billionaires “use increasingly complex tax planning to exploit trusts and avoid paying taxes, including through using grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), other grantor trusts, and perpetual dynasty trusts.”