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Guest editorial: Trusts explained

By Dr. Sherwood Burr


The release of the Pandora Papers has caused millions of Americans to think: Pandora, that’d be a great name for a strip club. Too late, suckers, I already opened one by that name. Well, I would have opened it had there not been a worldwide pole shortage.


The papers have also sparked an interest in trusts. The first time I invested in a trust was during a Cub Scouts retreat when I paid Bobby Janicek three dollars to catch the kid who was going to fall into my arms. His name was Dale and rumor had it that he’d contracted cooties – a serious medical condition at camp that summer. Bobby ended up dropping Dale because Bobby didn’t like to touch people, and, as a federal judge would later declare, was somewhat of a sadist. All of us were forced to leave camp early that summer, though Dale was the only one who got to ride in an ambulance. I’m still bitter that I didn’t get that merit badge, or my three dollars back.


Later, I learned about financial trusts which are complex instruments used to avoid paying taxes. Some say these are used by elites to hide stolen money or evade prosecution, but trusts are available to anyone who wants to hide stolen money or evade prosecution. Take my buddy Carlos Morales Troncoso, who used to run the Central Romano sugar company in the Dominican Republic. Naysayers claim that workers at Central Romano were mistreated but Ca-Mo-Tro (that’s what his close friends called him) always told me that he provided wages and housing. He even instituted a longevity bonus: after five years you got a hut with a roof.


Mi amigo was one of many to invest in trusts here in the United States. It all starts with a rich person with a dream of becoming even richer. That rich person is called a settlor and they give over their money to a trustee who manages the money for a beneficiary. Since the settlor has given up the money, the trustee is merely the manager of the money, and the beneficiary has yet to receive the money, all three can shrug their shoulders when the government asks, “who’s money is this?”


Pro-slush fund South Dakota has become an industry leader in creating trusts because if you’re sending your money offshore why not send it way offshore? Initially, I was leery of investing in South Dakota. The first time I went there was an accident. I had intended to drive to my local adult bookstore – the Porn Palace – but the GPS mistook what I said as “Corn Palace” and 27 hours later I ended up in Mitchell, SD. I met a broker in the parking lot who was offering investors a chance to double their money if only they could correctly identify where the queen was among these three cards he was shuffling. I don’t know how I lost six times; I kept a really close eye on the guy the whole time, well, except for when he pointed over my shoulder and said, “Look it’s Meryl Streep!” Turns out it was actually Kate Winslet – what a disappointment. I was going to tell the guy that he needed to be better at identifying Oscar winners walking the streets of Mitchell, but when I turned back, he was running away, I assume, out of embarrassment.


But I’ve now set up a trust with SHHHH Savings and Loan in Sioux Falls. I really like working with the good folks at SHHHH S&L, especially customer service manager Unindicted Co-Conspirator 3. He or she is really nice. I didn’t want to keep doing business in the Cayman Islands, not only because I don’t speak Cayman, but also because I was banned from the country after the unpermitted pool at my winter home accidentally contaminated the island’s drinking water. How was I supposed to know the pipes couldn’t handle that much chlorine?


My trust was easy to set up. I established a limited-liability corporation, SherBurr LLC, transferred in my personal assets which I acquired through shrewd investing and definitely not from flipping homes I’d repeatedly infested with skunks until the owner’s sold at ridiculously low prices. I then made SherBurr a subsidiary of Gromp Corp. which is a pass-through entity used by my charity Burr’s Kids. We help underprivileged youth monetize TikTok videos of themselves punching strangers in the balls.


Then the money is transferred (I like to make a whooshing sound each time I make a transaction, but feel free to come up with your own thing) to the trust. My beneficiary? My old buddy, Bobby Janicek, who died in a corporeal sense in 2017, but remains alive for this and Social Security check-cashing purposes.


Dr. Sherwood Burr appears courtesy of the Renew Hope Sanitarium. He has never been to South Dakota.


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