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TRUST HISTORY

The Origins and Legacy of the Master’s Spendthrift Trust

The foundations of what is now known as the Master’s Spendthrift Trust, and later iterations such as the Benson Financial Trust, were laid in the early 1950s by Robert N. Benson, Esq., a Harvard-educated attorney and protégé of Professor Austin Wakefield Scott, the renowned author of Scott on Trust Law, the leading authority on U.S. trust law.

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Benson studied under Professor Scott at Harvard, served as his assistant in teaching trust law classes, and absorbed the meticulous legal principles that would shape his career. After graduating, Benson became a partner in a prestigious Wall Street law firm, where he worked with high-net-worth clients to design and implement sophisticated estate plans using Spendthrift Trusts. His firm also gained national attention for handling the insurance claim on the Andrea Doria shipwreck, which involved millions of dollars of cargo.

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By the late 1950s, Benson expanded his practice to Texas, focusing on bankruptcy, trust, and copyright law. Over the years, he recognized a major gap in estate planning, a need for a trust structure that could provide bulletproof asset protection not just for the wealthy, but for a broader section of society.

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This realization set in motion the creation of what would become the Master Spendthrift Trust format. In the mid-1990s, Benson partnered with Tarrant County Judge George Boren and paralegal Richard Ronald. Together, they refined Benson’s trust structures into a modernized, legally airtight format, and in 1999, they filed the first Master Spendthrift Trust Format Copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office.

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The filing was historic
The Office confirmed it was the first and only trust ever to be copyrighted. The copyright covered the specific legal structure, documentation, and language of the trust, making unauthorized use or sale a direct infringement. Benson, Boren, and Ronald made the trust widely available, breaking the mold of estate planning exclusivity by offering it to everyday individuals rather than only to the wealthy elite.

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Demand surged

Over the decades, thousands of Benson’s original Spendthrift Trusts, and later the Master’s Spendthrift Trust and Benson Financial Trust, were created and sold. Attorneys across the country purchased the trusts for their own clients, further spreading its reach and reputation.

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However, with its success came attempts at theft. Many tried to infringe on the copyright, attempting to sell or use the trust without authorization. Each was met with legal action, heavy penalties, and binding agreements prohibiting further misuse. Benson and his successors have actively and consistently defended their copyrights through all available legal means.

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Modernization and Tax Code Integration

​As the 21st century began, changing tax laws required the Master’s Trust to evolve. A CPA who was also an attorney worked with Benson and other legal professionals to align the trust with Internal Revenue Code Title 26, Subtitle A, Chapter 1, Subchapter J, Part I, Subpart A, Section 643, Statutes (3), (4), and (7)(b).

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These provisions allow a Non-Grantor, Irrevocable, Discretionary Trust to:

  • Allocate capital gains to the trust corpus, removing them from taxable income.

  • Allocate extraordinary dividends or taxable stock dividends to corpus, also excluding them from taxable income.

  • Receive certain royalties (including from oil and gas) and classify them as non-income if properly allocated.
     

This meant the trust could legally invest in the stock market, receive large dividends, or benefit from mineral royalties without those proceeds being taxable to the trust—provided the governing instrument and state law supported the allocation.

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The Master’s Trust package includes all documents necessary to execute these provisions, including the legal framework to declare extraordinary dividends as non-income, along with expert guidance to ensure compliance.

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Faith-Based Purpose

From its 1999 copyright onward, all proceeds from the sale of the Master’s Spendthrift Trust have been dedicated to its named beneficiaries: God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit - Works of faith, hope, and love - The poor, indigent, widows, and orphans - Christian education and causes - The Church of Christ - Other works as the Lord directs

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No trustee has ever been paid a salary or reimbursed for expenses, nor can they be under the trust’s terms. This was by design; Benson, Boren, and Ronald wished for no individual to personally profit from their creation.

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Today, the Master’s Spendthrift Trust (Benson Financial Spendthrift Trust) stands as a rare and enduring combination of legal innovation, asset protection, tax efficiency, and faith-driven stewardship, a legacy more than 70 years in the making, backed by one-of-a-kind copyright protection and decades of proven application.

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All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, initiated, or utilized, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express permission in writing from Benson Financial LLC. Violators are subject to both civil & criminal liability. See 17 U.S.C. § 501-506, which includes civil liability for damages, loss of profits, statutory damages up to $150,000, and atty fees. See 18 USCS § 2319, which includes imprisonment of up to 10 years.

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“Benson Financial does not give legal or tax advice to any purchaser of the Copyrights. We encourage everyone to seek legal and tax advice from qualified professionals.”

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NOTICE: Benson financial US Business Trust (“BENSON”) strongly encourages the purchasers of a Benson Trusts Product to be mindful of all rules and regulations that apply and should be followed in structuring, implementing, and operating any of the various Benson Trust Products. Accordingly, Benson strongly urges each trustee and/or their authorized agent or representative to at all times be knowledgeable of, and compliant in all material respects with the provisions of Trust by: (1) not engaging in any type of fraudulent activity in connection with the administration of the Trust, (2) not taking any action in contravention to the Trust, local law, state law, and/or federal law, (3) timely filing an accurate income tax return with the Internal Revenue Service (and where required the filing of an accurate income tax return with all local and state governments), and (4) not understating income or overstating a deduction on an income tax return. By purchasing a Benson Trust Product, directly or indirectly, the purchaser agrees that he, she, it, is solely responsible for consulting with their own tax advisor as to the tax consequences associated with the income and principal distributions made from this trust and that you the purchaser assume sole responsibility, to the complete exclusion of Benson for the tax consequences resulting from the use of the Benson trust product including specifically with respect to income and principal distribution and IRC Section 643 treatment and application. The tax rules governing Non-Grantor, Irrevocable, Complex, Discretionary, Spendthrift Trusts are complex, change frequently, and depend on each individual taxpayer’s situation. By purchasing A Benson Trust Product, you the purchaser acknowledge that any tax liability or other tax consequences to you resulting from the establishment of this trust is solely your responsibility. Purchaser further acknowledges that he, she, or it, bears sole responsibility for the structure, implementation, and operation of any of the various Benson products purchased by you, directly or indirectly, and that you, to the express exclusion of Benson, shall bear sole responsibility for any adverse consequences for improperly structuring, implementing, and operating, a Benson Trust Product or otherwise improperly using a Benson trust product.

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