You Can't Predict What Life Will Throw at Your Family. But You Can Decide How It Gets Handled.
A Wyoming Qualified Spendthrift Trust (QST) takes two to three weeks to set up and can protect your family's legacy for generations. Mark Pierce has spent 42 years designing trusts that hold up when it matters most.
Why This Matters
What Happens When There Is a Plan.
And When There Isn't.
A Qualified Spendthrift Trust Protected the Family's Estate Through a Difficult Divorce
A husband and wife set up a trust together with their children as beneficiaries. They agreed on how the estate would be divided, documented it properly, and moved on with their lives.
Years later the marriage ended. The departing spouse went after half the estate. Because the trust had defined each member's proportionate share from the beginning, the structure held. Everyone received what the family had agreed on. Without a QST, what was already a painful divorce could have become a financially ruinous legal battle on top of it.
Without a Plan, a Death in the Family Became Two Crises at Once
Three brothers built a business together over decades. When one passed away, his ownership interest passed to his widow.
Facing an uncertain financial future, she demanded a $1 million buyout. The business was barely worth that in total, and the brothers simply didn't have that kind of cash on hand. They had to liquidate. Each walked away with far less than what they'd spent decades building, and all of it happened while they were already grieving.
If the business had been held in a QST, the late brother could have named his wife as a beneficiary. She would have received her proportionate share of distributions and been taken care of financially, without holding a management interest that forced everyone's hand.
Who We Work With
Entrepreneurs & Business Owners
You've spent years building a company, client base, and reputation. As your business grows, so does what's at stake. A QST ensures that your business interests, and everything tied to them, are structured to pass cleanly to the people you intend, on the terms you set.
Physicians & High-Risk Professionals
Your career comes with an unusual combination of high income, high liability, and high visibility. A QST separates your personal and family assets from your professional exposure, so that what you've built over a career isn't determined by a single bad outcome.
High-Net-Worth Families
You've accumulated significant assets across businesses, real estate, and investments. A QST ensures that wealth transfers to the next generation on your terms, with protections in place for the people you love and the relationships that can complicate even the best intentions.
"Every trust I draft is stress-tested against everything I have seen go wrong."
Meet Your Attorney
Mark Pierce
CPA, litigator, federal bankruptcy trustee, private equity operator, and business owner. Mark has spent 42 years at the intersection of tax law, bankruptcy law, business, and trust design.
He has seen these structures fail under scrutiny and built his practice around making sure they don't. Every trust he drafts is stress-tested against everything he has seen go wrong.
Read Mark's Full Background →Why Wyoming
It Matters Where Your Trust Is Formed
You don't need to live in Wyoming to establish a Wyoming trust. Here's why it matters where your trust is formed.
The Nation's Shortest Fraudulent Transfer Window
Once assets are transferred into a Wyoming QST, the window for anyone to legally challenge that transfer can be as short as 120 days. In other states it can be two years or more.
A Dedicated Court With Sealed Records
Wyoming has a court specifically for trust and business matters. Proceedings are automatically sealed, so if a trust is ever challenged, the details stay private.
No State Income or Estate Tax
Wyoming imposes no state income tax and no state estate tax on trust assets. More of what you've built stays in the trust.
The Difference a Plan Makes
With a QST and Without One
- ✕ When you pass away, your estate goes through probate — a public, costly, and time-consuming process
- ✕ Your assets are distributed according to state law, not your intentions
- ✕ A divorcing spouse, a remarriage, or an unexpected death can leave your family fighting over what you built
- ✕ Your business interests pass to heirs who may not agree on what to do with them
- ✕ There is no structure to ensure the people you want taken care of are taken care of
- ✓ Your assets transfer to the people you intend, on the terms you set, without going through probate
- ✓ Your wishes are documented and enforceable before life gets complicated
- ✓ A divorcing spouse, a remarriage, or an unexpected death doesn't determine the outcome. Your plan does
- ✓ Your business interests are structured so heirs receive their proportionate share without forcing a sale or a dispute
- ✓ The people you want taken care of are taken care of, no matter what
Get Started
The Best Time to Plan Is Before Life Gets Complicated
A Wyoming Qualified Spendthrift Trust takes two to three weeks to set up. Schedule a confidential consultation with Mark to find out if it's right for your situation.
Your consultation is confidential by attorney-client privilege. No obligation.