Research library All trust systems compared · Wisconsin agency trusts — trustees & governing documents · The Red River Trust — origin & legal status · Similar trust-template & sovereignty sites · The D'Avila Family Trust myth · Uniform Trust Code & 'common-law' trust compliance · Pure Trust vs Red River/Jimron spendthrift (both common-law trusts) · Titling a Wisconsin vehicle when you have no title · Wyoming/Montana LLCs and who 'beneficial owner' means · Asset-protection & autonomy trust — governing authority (cited cases + UTC) · Trust → holding LLC → operating LLC — the lawful structure · Moving a 15-year-old S corporation into an LLC and into the trust · Wisconsin Voluntary Paternity Acknowledgment — does signing bind you? · Status-paperwork processes compared — State National · SEDM · Amnesty · Does doing one preclude another? — how the status paths interact · State-national source paperwork — file and evidence map

Pure Trust vs. the Red River / Jimron spendthrift trust — and where Amnesty fits

Both trust builders in this toolkit produce common-law / private-contract trusts — the same broad family. This page compares them honestly and answers a common question: isn't the Red River trust also a "common law trust," like the Amnesty one? Short answer: yes.

First, the thing they have in common

"Common law trust" (a.k.a. private trust, pure trust, contract trust, unincorporated business trust organization) just means a trust created by private declaration/contract rather than organized under a specific statute. By that definition all of these are common-law trusts:

So the difference between them is not "common law vs. statutory." They are all in the common-law/private-contract family. What differs is structure, branding, and which theory each leans on.

⚠️ And from the law's side the label is moot for all of them: the IRS states that "common law trusts no longer exist since all states now have statutes relating to the creation and operation of trusts," and taxes every trust on its economic substance regardless of what it is called. See docs/TRUST-CODE-AND-COMPLIANCE.md, docs/SIMILAR-SITES.md.

The two builders, side by side

Red River / Jimron spendthrift (redriver) Pure Trust / UBO (pure)
Self-description "Irrevocable, Non-Grantor, Complex, Discretionary Spendthrift Trust" "Pure / common-law contract trust" / unincorporated business organization
Created by An indenture, but dressed in statutory tax vocabulary (§643, non-grantor, complex, spendthrift) An indenture, framed as purely private contract, "non-statutory," "outside government jurisdiction"
Defining party/office Third-party Settlor who reserves nothing + a Trust Guardian / "Compliance Overseer" control office Creator/Exchangor who conveys property in exchange for units
Beneficial interest Named beneficiaries with discretionary interests Units of beneficial interest (like shares), evidenced by certificates
Governance Trustee discretion; spendthrift creditor clause Trustee acts by recorded minutes & resolutions (board-like)
Signature tax theory IRC §643 — income assigned to corpus "isn't taxable" (questioned by IRS AM 2023-006) Contract autonomy — "private, non-statutory, outside the tax system" (Hale v. Henkel framing)
Document set Trust Agreement, Schedule A, Letter of Conveyance, Certificate of Trust, Certificate of Beneficial Interest Trust Indenture, Schedule A (exchange), Certificate of Beneficial Interest (units), Organizational Minutes, Certificate of Trust
Copyright note Derived from the copyrighted Master's Spendthrift format (see docs/RED-RIVER-TRUST.md) Generic genre; this builder uses original wording

So which is "more" of a common law trust?

Neither, really. The Pure Trust is the most explicit about the common-law / private-contract framing (it's right there in the name, and it leans on the "contract, not statute" argument). The Red River trust is also a common-law/private-contract trust, but it borrows statutory tax terms ("non-grantor," "complex," "spendthrift," §643) to make a specific tax argument on top of the common-law form. Think of Red River as "a common-law trust wearing a statutory tax costume," and the Pure Trust as "the same common-law trust with the costume off, arguing contract autonomy directly."

Where the Amnesty trust fits

The Amnesty Coalition "private trust" is also a common-law/private trust — same family. The difference is that for Amnesty the trust is one piece of a larger program (novation of the birth-certificate "contract," 14th-Amendment opt-out, passport assertion, UCC redemption), not the centerpiece. So:

The bottom line (same for all three)

Calling any of them a "common law trust," "pure trust," or "private trust" changes nothing about how a court or the IRS treats it. All are valid as trusts only if they meet the mandatory requirements of the governing state's trust code (benefit of beneficiaries, lawful purpose, a real trustee duty), and all are taxed on economic substance — the label buys no exemption, and using any of them to escape tax or hide assets from creditors is the abusive-trust pattern the IRS and courts reject. Use these builders to assemble a legitimate trust with a professional's review; do not rely on the "common law" label to do legal work it cannot do.