Absolutely, Blomquist. There are many trust structures, but private trusts and closely held corporations can work together hand in glove, usually for completely legal purposes. For instance, in its bare bones simplest form with no third party involvement, let's say my private company doesn't have enough available cash or credit to purchase an asset, but I can afford to buy the property in my own name. So I create a private trust and purchase it, chalking the price up to a loan repayable to me by my company also naming the beneficiary my company who has the sole use and "benefit" of it including entering into contracts in its name, taking profits from it and paying taxes on profits it generates, etc. In this way my company can grow, aquire street creds and credit worthiness when actually, the owner of its principal asset and its primary creditor is just me. The only proviso is that, theoretically, the true owner, me, (the trustee) is not supposed to be doing any work whatsoever on behalf of the company. There would be little doubt about that if the trustee is kicked back in the cooler for an indeterminate length of time. Because the company is only the beneficiary, a creditor cannot force its sale. In privately held corporations (i.e. no shareholders that are arm's length) this is a very common way to hold assets and distribute cash under the corporate umbrella. There are also private family trusts that are set up similarly. Sorry if all this is beyond the province of this site but suffice it to say, there are many ways to legally allocate cash within a closely held corporation's trust structures. Of course, these can become very sophisticated arrangements in which there can also be private trusts within trusts and with privately held corporate subsidiaries as beneficiaries so that it becomes all but impossible to track back through the layers to determine, with any certainty, exactly who truly owns what and where the income is going. For all it's issues and problems, millardair has been a sophisticated corporate enterprise for generations and DM has also assembled significant real estate holdings on his own. I have very little doubt that a rat or two in the cupboard could cause very significant damage, imo.