Estate planning is inherently fraught with risk and uncertainty, but some practical steps may mitigate some issues.
Even really common planning techniques, like an irrevocable life insurance trust , are subject to uncertainty. The law on whether an insurance trust is a wholly grantor trust for income tax purposes is as clear as mud. If the trustee can use income earned by the trust to pay insurance premiums on your life does that make the trust a grantor trust for income tax purposes? It might.
For example, your estate planning attorney might design documents for a rolling GRAT estate plan. But it is the investment location decisions and investment performance issues that might determine the success of that plan. No doubt your attorney can provide some comment, but shouldn’t you have your investment adviser in on that discussion to understand better?