Guide · September 2026
Understanding trusts.
When it truly serves and when it is the disguise of a fear; segregation and the control that turns it off; the new taxation with the choice of moment; the true costs and the simpler alternatives. The trust explained without selling it: an independent guide for those who must protect someone, for a long time.
The trust is the most powerful wealth-planning tool our legal system recognises, and the most misunderstood: in Italy it is too often bought for the wrong reasons (hiding, shielding, saving tax), which are exactly the reasons for which it does not work. Its true trade is another: protecting those who cannot protect themselves, governing the long term, giving wealth a third-party administrator with rules that last.
This guide explains it without selling it, with the series' framework: the entrustment and its walls (the actors, segregation, and the honest map of what it does not protect from), the rules and the accounts (the new 4-bis with the choice of moment, income, the subscription, the simpler alternatives) and conscious use: a complete case with numbers, the errors ranked, the five moves, and the criterion for judging whether the trust is the right tool, or whether it is not.
It is an independent guide: it sells no deeds and no structures, and when the right move is a simpler tool, or no tool, it says so. It does not replace the specialists: it prepares you to use them well, which is another thing entirely.
Inside
What a trust really does and the four misconceptions to clear; the actors, the two deeds and the borrowed law; segregation with the switch that turns it off; and the honest map of what it does not protect from: yesterday's creditors, forced heirs, the taxman.
The new 4-bis with the choice between entry and exit; income across opaque, transparent and interposed; the made-to-measure subscription, with the proportionality threshold; and the toolshop next door, from the family fund to the holding company.
A grandfather, two under-age grandchildren and three roads, with the numbers; the typical errors ranked, from the most lethal; the five moves in a programme; and the pivot of it all: the trust's four true trades, and its four disguises. The glossary closes.
PDF · 49 pages · 13 chapters
Contents
Part One · The entrustment and its walls
- 01 The made-to-measure suit, and its misconceptions 6
- 02 The actors and the rules of the game 9
- 03 Segregation, and the control that kills it 12
- 04 What the trust does not protect from 15
Part Two · Rules and accounts
- 05 The wealth tax: the new 4-bis 19
- 06 Income: opaque, transparent, interposed 23
- 07 What it really costs 26
- 08 The tools next door 29
Part Three · Conscious use
- 09 The complete case: a grandfather, two grandchildren, three roads 33
- 10 The typical errors, mapped 36
- 11 The five moves 39
- 12 When it truly serves: the criterion 42
- 13 Essential glossary 45
- Disclaimers 48
A hitch
The guide cannot be reached right now.
The file is not responding, and the fault is on this side: it has nothing to do with you. Try again in a few minutes, or write to info@massimilianosilla.com and it will be sent to you.
The other guides are on the Resources page. This one also exists as the Italian edition.
Let’s talk about
your wealth.
A guide explains the rules. A conversation tells you which ones apply to you.
Request a meeting