South Dakota Trust Company (SDTC) serves affluent families and their advisors, both domestically and internationally, by offering tax-favored trust situs, modern trust statutes, customized trust administration, quality service, unique and creative advice and reasonable fees.
We work with clients from 54 countries and 47 states. SDTC currently has $135 billion in assets under administration, and although SDTC does not have client net worth minimums or any minimum trust account size, SDTC works with over 100 billionaire and 360 centimillionaire clients. Our clients have chosen SDTC as a result of SDTC’s exceptional service, flexibility and experience, along with South Dakota’s competitive and unique trust, asset protection, income tax and private family trust company laws.
SDTC specializes in trust administration of both trusts established pursuant to South Dakota law and trusts of other states moved to South Dakota (i.e., change of trust situs by naming/appointing SDTC as trustee).
SDTC’s founders each have thirty-four plus years of trust experience and our trust officer’s average more than twenty years of experience. Moreover, SDTC’s trust officers are highly credentialed attorneys, accountants, and trust professionals who are trained and experienced in the areas of South Dakota trust administration. Each trust officer utilizes their extensive experience to supplement and facilitate communication with the client, the beneficiaries and the client’s other investment, financial planning, legal, insurance, and tax advisors, acting as a relationship manager while customizing trust services individually for each client.
Additionally, SDTC’s trust services are complemented with it’s trust accounting support via Infovisa Trust Accounting System. SDTC can work with most all custodians of the client’s choice, and takes legal ownership of the custody accounts as the administrative trustee.
“Serving Families in Perpetuity”
Lastly, our objective is to provide “flexible, individualized, service-oriented, cost-effective trust administration”. With this in mind, we seek to tailor our services to each family, allowing us to help in the following ways:
- With newly drafted South Dakota trust laws, SDTC can act as “directed” administrative trustee, leaving the family and their advisors as the investment and distribution advisors, committees, trustees, and/or trust protectors. This allows the family to work with their existing investment and insurance advisors of their choice, and also allows SDTC to hold all types of illiquid assets (i.e., closely-held LLCs, partnerships, real estate, etc.). For additional information on the directed trust, please click here.
- SDTC can serve as successor trustee or co-trustee for trusts looking to move to South Dakota for its trust, asset protection, and tax benefits. SDTC can “delegate” investment responsibility to an outside investment manager. These trusts generally retain the trust laws of the states in which they were created for construction and validity, but are administered under South Dakota Law. Additionally, it is very easy and inexpensive to reform a “delegated” trust from another state to a South Dakota “directed” trust, if desired. For additional information on reforming, modifying, or decanting an existing trust, please click here.
- SDTC can serve as both Corporate and/or Trustee Agent by assisting a family with the formation, operation, compliance and administration of a Private Family Trust Company (PFTC) in South Dakota (regulated) or Wyoming (unregulated and regulated), by providing the family with the necessary office space, office services (e.g., answer the phone, collect and forward mail, ect.) and local Board membership, as well as assistance with regulatory/compliance issues, trust administration, trust accounting, and custody services. The PFTC can then work with the non-South Dakota Family Office in servicing the family, typically through a servicing agreement. No one needs to move to South Dakota if SDTC is involved. For additional information on private trust companies, please click here.
- SDTC serves international families worldwide with the following types of trusts:
- Foreign Grantor or Non-Grantor Trusts
- Non-Resident Alien (NRA) Dynasty Trust
- Standby-Dynasty Trust
- Pre-Immigration Planning
- Foreign Law Trust – change of situs
For additional information on international family planning, please click here.
- SDTC administers all types of insurance trusts and LLCs as a result of South Dakota’s favorable trust and insurance laws. In addition, South Dakota also has the lowest state premium tax in the U.S. for insurance policies held in LLCs and one of the lowest state premium taxes for policies held in trusts (i.e., 8 basis points or 8/100ths of 1% compared to the national average of 200 basis points: New York – 200 basis points (2%), California – 235 (2.35%), Nevada – 350 (3.5%), Florida – 175 (1.75%)). For additional information on insurance trusts, please click here.
For further information on our services, products, and trust strategies, please feel free to review our website, and if you have any inquiries or would like to speak to us further, please feel free to Contact Us.