Capital Gains Tax - Charitable Remainder Trust!

[Ali Samana]

As investors, I am sure most of us try to minimize our tax liability and increase our profits. I do a few quick rehab flips and thus pay a big chunk of it to taxes. I wen to a seminar (I go to many and have never bought anything from them) from James Smith series and they had a harvard attorney there talking about a way to pay 0 capital gains taxes. He talked about forming a Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT) and buying properties through that. I received a negative response from my attorney about it on Monday and was told anything left in a CRT upon the death of two people (person and spouse) has to go to a charity, hence the name.

Does anyone know of any amendments to a CRT that would chage that fact? any workarounds that are legal? Has anyone used anything from James Smith series? Are they worth their salt?

Thanks in advance for any help on this.