We manage tax exempt and taxable portfolios (stocks, bonds, etc.) on a self-directed or discretionary basis.
We help our clients reduce their tax liability through a strategic analysis of their securities portfolio.
We manage and implement a strategy for both real estate and unique assets of a client’s portfolio.
We provide sophisticated family office solutions, including coordination of fund interests and closely held businesses.
We offer our clients alternative investment opportunities with a range of strategies and risk profiles.
We work with key external partners to help analyze and coordinate what insurance is best for clients’ financial goals and risk exposure.
We act as your custodian to facilitate you investing your IRA into real estate and other alternative investments.
Securities Portfolio Investment Management
We manage tax-exempt and taxable portfolios (stocks, bonds, etc.) on a self-directed or discretionary basis.
Managing portfolios, whether in the U.S., internationally, or both, requires a long-range financial plan, building and overseeing a wide selection of investments to meet both short- and long-term financial goals, and determining the evolving risk tolerance of each investor, family office, or business service.
Active management also requires strategic buying and selling of stocks, bonds, CDs, precious metals, and other assets to beat the broader market, as well as to stay the course through recessions and bull markets.
This service can include an asset allocation with a blend of active, passive, discretionary, and non-discretionary portfolios management. “Passive” portfolio management is often preferred by clients who want to take advantage of market movements, though it can be more volatile than actively managed portfolios.
Tax Loss Harvesting
We help our clients reduce their tax liability through a strategic analysis of their securities portfolio.
In particular, tax loss harvesting is an investing strategy that can help clients sell a portion of their portfolio at a loss to offset gains realized by selling other stocks at a profit. Therefore, this strategy essentially helps turn any financial losses into financial gains by December 31 of any year to reduce the following year’s taxes.
Other tax loss harvesting considerations may include “wash sales” –– selling securities at a loss, and then purchasing the same security or “substantially identical” securities within 30 days before or after that sale date; “cost basis calculations” –– where you need to know what you paid originally for a specific security; and utilizing algorithms to automate this investment process while providing complimentary harvesting of your taxable losses to lower your tax burden.
Consult your accounting team for how much you may be able to deduct for single filers and married couples who file jointly if you choose to take advantage of tax loss harvesting.
Real Estate and Unique, Non-Liquid Asset Management
We manage and implement a strategy for both real estate and unique assets of a client’s portfolio.
Real estate is the most popular — and among the least liquid investment assets — for trust clients. Since this investment category can include your residence, your business, rental property, commercial property, industrial property, mixed-use, agricultural, raw land, rental property, and special use real estate, each can take months or even years to convert into cash on hand without affecting its price.
Other common examples of non-liquid assets that require managing are equipment, vehicles, artwork, and collectibles, though the value of the latter two varies widely.
In addition, ownership in venture capital funds, private equity funds, and non-publicly traded businesses may be considered non-liquid. As with real estate, the time it take to convert them to cash varies widely. The asset management of any of these categories requires specialized knowledge and skills that Sunstone Trust Company can provide.
Family Office and Business Services
We provide sophisticated family office solutions, including coordination of fund interests and closely held businesses.
Sunstone Trust Company can actively manage the daily finances of family offices and business offices, personalized for each client’s particular needs so that you can focus on what is most important to you — running your company. In addition, a business trust can protect your personal assets from claims by any personal creditors.
We can act as a cog in the wheel to coordinate all of the activities of your financial advisors, attorneys, accountants, and bookkeepers, providing everything from bill payment and payroll services to transferring funds to customized reporting as needed. Sunstone also can discuss family office and family business succession plans so the next generation can be put in place.
Proprietary Common Trust Funds
We offer our clients proprietary alternative investment opportunities with a range of strategies and risk profiles.
There are two types of Proprietary Common Trust Funds: enterprise funds and internal service funds. Similar to those in the private section, these funds are used to account for activities that receive significant support from charges and fees.
Typically, proprietary funds use the accrual basis of accounting and the economic resources measurement focus. They also recognize revenues when they are earned and recognize expenses whenever a liability is incurred.
Custom Insurance Analysis
We work with key external partners to help analyze and coordinate what insurance is best for clients’ financial goals and risk exposure.
Similar to life insurance companies, Sunstone Trust Company is aligned to our clients for the long term. In our commitment as a fiduciary, our focus is on appropriate advice from seasoned practitioners, tailored for our clients in the context of their personal, investment, and tax situations.
For many clients, life insurance can help address these needs for domestic and global citizens. With this in mind, third parties are available to analyze and coordinate which particular types of insurance are best for each client’s financial goals and actual risk exposure, as well as which structures and strategies can house, finance, and shield investments.
We recognize that as a family’s wealth grows in size and complexity, the need to manage taxes, philanthropy, and intergenerational wealth transfer to heirs increases materially. Harnessed correctly, investments within life insurance can be a uniquely powerful asset class due to its tax-effective nature, treatment of income and capital gains, and ability to compound wealth over time. Additionally, for clients’ balance sheets, especially for legacy planning, insurance instruments can relieve some anxiety surrounding, maintaining, and spending significant wealth.
Sunstone Trust Company is not an insurance company or an insurance broker. We do not broker insurance or accept commissions or related fees.
Self-Directed IRAs and Alternative Investments
We act as your custodian to facilitate you investing your IRA into real estate and other alternative investments.
We believe our clients should have the freedom and flexibility to direct their IRA to invest in assets they understand such as real estate, cryptocurrency and other alternative investments. We are unique in providing a complete array of investment and fiduciary services to our clients, including these self-directed IRA accounts.
“Fiduciary” financial advisors must put their clients’ best interests before their own, seeking the best prices and terms. You can have peace of mind knowing that our regulators hold us to the highest fiduciary standards and that we are always putting your interests first.
We offer best-in-class tax and fiduciary compliance while reviewing your trust with attorneys, CPAs and financial advisors.
We work with sister entities and client advisors to execute fully legal strategies to significantly enhance overall and long-term tax positions.
We advise and coordinate with donor-advised funds, foundations and charitable trusts to ensure transparency and maximize tax benefits.
We provide high-touch estate settlement to professionally distribute assets and minimize family conflict in a time of grief.
We administer mandatory and discretionary distributions using state-of-the-art tools, including the Trust Card™.
We act as trustee or fiduciary agent for family, special purpose, and business trusts to ensure continuity and professional fiduciary management.
Accounting and Reporting
We offer best-in-class tax and fiduciary compliance while reviewing your trusts with attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors.
A focal point of any type of trust is based on the exacting details of its accounting procedures with compilations of all of your financial information, reports, income statements, tax returns, and ultimately, your gains and losses.
Sunstone Trust Company works hand-in-hand with your team of accountants and bookkeepers to provide transparency in trust administration, documentation, client information, bill management, payments, and more. We review your taxes that are paid annually; your disbursements to trust beneficiaries; fees and expenses paid to attorneys, CPAs, financial advisors, and other members of the trustee’s advisory team; as well as reimbursement of expenses and compensation paid to the trustee annually.
Tax Optimization
We work with sister entities and client advisors to execute fully legal strategies to significantly enhance overall and long-term tax positions.
Since filing tax returns is one of the most important trustee responsibilities — and minimizing income taxes is of supreme importance — our fiduciaries pay consider a variety of tax-saving strategies every year.
These can include paying deductible expenses before the end of the year such as accountant, attorney, fiduciary, and trustee fees; reviewing any investment holdings to potentially liquidate unrealized losses; considering distributing capital gains when appropriate; distributing trust-related income to your beneficiaries if supported by your trust documents; discussing the timing of retirement plan distributions; and determining any estimated tax payments.
Charity and Philanthropy
We advise and coordinate with donor-advised funds, foundations and charitable trusts to ensure transparency and maximize trustees’ tax benefits.
A charitable trust is a set of assets — typically liquid assets — that a donor utilizes to create a charitable foundation to concurrently benefit the creator of the trust, your beneficiaries, and a charity. These assets are then held and managed by the charity for a specified period of time, with some or all of the interest produced by the assets going to that charity. The trustees of a trust that is registered as a charity are autonomous, answering only to the Charitable Commission and the law.
Some of our clients partner with the National Philanthropic Trust to administer their donor- advised fund or other philanthropy and ask us to manage the assets . This public charity is dedicated to providing philanthropic expertise to donors, foundations, and financial institutions, which in turn enables them to realize their aspirations for philanthropy.
Sunstone Trust Company will guide our clients with both of these types of trusts. We are in the process of establishing a tax-exempt (Section 501(c)(3)) entity to sponsor donor-advised funds to assist with charitable giving.
Donor-advised funds offer our clients a unique, flexible, cost-effective, and tax-efficient way to create a charitable legacy and manage charitable giving with a variety of benefits. These may include the ability to donate cash, stocks, mutual funds and other types of assets; potentially realizing same-year tax benefits if you itemize your deductions; potentially eliminating capital gains taxes on contributions of appreciated non-cash assets; and investing the assets in the donor-advised fund for potential tax-free growth. (As always, consult your tax advisor.)
Estate Settlement
We provide high-touch estate settlement to professionally distribute assets and minimize family conflict in a time of grief.
The passing of a trustee is always a time of reflection. Sunstone Trust Company takes the time to let the family or beneficiaries move past their loss before beginning the process that is necessary to transfer the asset ownership from the deceased’s trust to the parties who are entitled to receive the assets, per the specific provisions of the decedent’s trust.
As a fiduciary, working in concert with other parties such as the trust’s attorney, accountants, investment advisors, the decedent’s family, and other parties, we always act in good faith to provide all of the relevant facts to everyone concerned.
The basic duties include collecting, valuing inventory, and conservatively managing assets; keeping accurate records, preparing monthly statements, and creating the final accounting documents; coordinating post-death tax and estate planning documents; protecting, preserving, and investing the assets; settling any claims and paying debts of the decedent and those to the estate; preparing, filing, and paying the final income and estate tax returns; and preparing a plan of distribution and re-titling, reregistering, and transferring the remaining assets.
Distributive Services
We administer mandatory and discretionary distributions using state-of-the-art tools, including our proprietary Trust Card™.
The subject of distributions can be a highly contested topic among families and beneficiaries. We bring professional judgment and skill to help families administer assets and to make distributions in line with donor and settlor instructions and the trust documents. This relieves family members of the liability and risks of handling such tasks themselves.
Sunstone Trust Company is developing the Trust Card™ to streamline the manual and time-intensive process of making distributions and payments from asset accounts. Most independent RIAs prefer not to manage disbursements and clients prefer to avoid the time and hassle of calling their investment adviser every time they need a disbursement. The Trust Card will also enhance control and transparency for parents, fiduciaries, advisors, and others who are responsible for making gifts and sending money to loved ones.
Trustee Services
We act as trustee or fiduciary agent for family, special purpose, and business trusts to ensure continuity and professional fiduciary management.
Sunstone Trust Company can act as trustee or we can act as agent of the trustee with specific and more limited authority. We can precisely tailor our services to each type of trust, including those described below.
This trust enables the capital of the deceased spouse to generate income for the surviving spouse and provide a level of certainty for other family members.
CLTs and CRTs are both gifts of cash or other property to a named charity that receives an income stream throughout the term of either of these irrevocable trusts.
An irrevocable, non-amendable trust is set up with principal assets of one or more life insurance policies, enabling a grantor to exempt assets from a taxable estate.
GRATs are irrevocable trusts paying assets annually through an annuity to minimize taxes on large financial gifts to family members over a certain period of time.
QPRTs are a specific type of irrevocable trust allowing its creator to remove a personal home from an estate to reduce gift taxes incurred when transferring assets.
This irrevocable first-party, third-party, or pooled trust enables a person with special needs as the beneficiary to receive income while others manage the assets.
Sunstone Trust Company’s complete range of solutions help you stay aligned within changing financial markets to provide flexibility and increase efficiency.
This type of trust enables you to name a child (under the age of 21) who can be a grantor, a trustee, or a beneficiary. However, it cannot be revoked or changed.
Sunstone is a trust company chartered by the State of California (Certificate of Authority No. 2676). Sunstone is also a member of the Association of Trust Organizations, the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Greater Irvine Chamber.
