The Honorable Mark W. Everson

Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service

Courier's Desk

1111 Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20044

RE:      Pre-Release Comments on IRS Business Plan Project to Provide Guidance Regarding the Consequences Under Various Estate, Gift, and Generation-Skipping Transfer (GST) Tax Provisions of Using a Private Trust Company (PTC) as the Trustee of a Trust

Dear Commissioner Everson:

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is pleased to offer the attached pre-release comments on guidance needed on the estate, gift, and GST consequences of using a family-owned company as the trustee of a trust. We are providing several suggestions on specific areas involving private trust companies (PTCs) that require guidance and our suggestions on specific approaches that we hope would be considered for inclusion in future guidance in the area. Our Trust, Estate, and Gift Tax Technical Resource Panel’s Private Trust Companies Task Force developed these comments, which were approved by both the AICPA's Trust, Estate, and Gift Tax Technical Resource Panel and Tax Executive Committee.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants is the national, professional association of CPAs, with approximately 350,000 members, including CPAs in business and industry, public practice, government, and education, student affiliates, and international associates. Our members provide tax services to individuals, not-for-profit organizations, small and medium-sized businesses, as well as America's largest businesses.

Our attached comments focus on the valuable role that private trust companies play and address governance, discretionary trust distribution and investment powers issues involving PTCs. We welcome the opportunity to address any additional areas in which the IRS might be interested.

As we discuss in our attached comments, forming, staffing and running a PTC is both expensive and time consuming. IRS guidance and safe harbors are of critical importance to give families embarking on this process some degree of certainty that if properly structured, the PTC will not result in unexpected estate inclusion issues or other adverse tax consequences.

We welcome the opportunity to discuss our comments further with you or others at the IRS and Treasury Department. Please contact me at tpurcell@creighton.edu; Steven A. Thorne, Chair of the AICPA Trust, Estate, and Gift Tax Technical Resource Panel, at stethorne@deloitte.com; Lewis M. Linn, Chair of the AICPA Private Trust Companies Task Force, at llinn@linnthurber.com; or Eileen Sherr, AICPA Technical Manager at esherr@aicpa.org.

Sincerely,

Thomas J. Purcell, III

Chair, AICPA Tax Executive Committee

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