Inheritance/estate administration plans: USA/France.

Inheritance planning in the United States and France

I want to set up a system so that in the event of my incapacity or death, my wife (French) or, if she dies too, my children's guardian can easily manage my finances and have access to funds or assets as needed. It would also be ideal to define when children should have access to certain assets (I think getting everything at 18 is a bad idea...).

If I still lived in the U.S., setting up a trust fund would seem like a normal solution. But I live in France, which creates certain problems for trust funds (discussed below). Does anyone have a solution that allows assets (financial accounts and real estate) to be readily available to my children's guardian in the event of my death or incapacity and allows me to control when the children should have access to the assets? I don't want it all stuck in probate (so probate doesn't seem to be a solution), and I don't want to create huge reporting or negative tax implications (that's where the problems with trust funds come in). Does anyone have a solution? Is a trust fund the only option?

Problems with fiduciary funds under French law:

Reports - declarations N 2182 Trust 1 and N2181 Trust 2seem to require a lot of work to complete and it seems to me that the N 2182 Trust 1 declaration will be required every month as I want my current account to be included in the trust to ensure bills are paid - reports are due within 30 days for: "any new contribution to the trust, withdrawal of property or rights from the trust, transfer or grant of property, rights or products of the trust and, more generally, any change of rights or facts which may affect the economics or operation of the trust concerned" (N 2182 Trust 1 - none).

Taxes:Since I want the assets to remain in a trust after my death to administer them for my children, will the provisions of 792-0bis 2b, c apply and therefore the assets will be taxed at the maximum rate? 2. In cases where the qualifications of both gift and inheritance do not apply, capitalized assets, rights, or products placed in a trust that pass to an heir at the settlor's death without being included in his or her estate or that remain in the trust after the settlor's death are subject to the estate transfer tax under the following conditions: a) If the portion of the capitalized assets, rights, or products owned by the heir at the date of death is determined, that portion is subject to the estate transfer tax on the

Not sure where the second #2 (the French part) came from, but even after translation it's the kind of legal terminology you'd have to pay a professional to understand. I'm assuming you currently reside here in France, in which case you should probably sit down with a notary (English speaking if you prefer) and discuss exactly what you are trying to accomplish by setting up a trust and see what he or she has to offer within the French system. There may be ways to achieve the same goals without involving the trust fund, and the tax and reporting responsibilities that can delay the process. Other factors that will affect your situation include things like the location of the estate at the date of your death (in France or elsewhere in the world) and where your children live at that time, their ages and the value of your estate. See what a notary can advise you on to make things as simple as possible.