In our trusts and estates practice we counsel and integrate the personal and financial needs of clients in tax sensitive estate planning matters. We utilize sophisticated planning techniques to effectuate wealth transfers and financial planning goals, including the creation of generation skipping dynasty trusts and asset protection trusts. Our focus enables our clients and their families to be properly positioned for future financial independence.
With the collaboration of our corporate and tax attorneys, we can suggest practical programs to minimize estate, gift and generation-skipping taxes by means of transfers at or before death. We help provide liquidity planning after death through the use of tax efficient means, including stock redemptions, partnership buyouts and life insurance. We achieve our clients’ objectives with a minimum of tax and administrative cost.
Our estate planning practice includes the preparation and structuring of Wills and various types of trusts, such as revocable living trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, qualified domestic trusts (QDOT), qualified terminable interest property trusts (QTIP), electing small business trusts (ESBT), qualified Subchapter S trusts (QSST) and spousal asset and income trusts.
We are skilled in identifying opportunities and implementing sophisticated estate planning techniques designed to reduce the tax cost of transferring wealth, including family limited partnerships (FLP), limited liability company (LLC) transactions, gifts and sales to intentionally defective grantor trusts (IDGT), grantor retained annuity trusts and unitrusts (GRAT and GRUT) and qualified personal residence trusts (QPRT).
Estate planning tools may include, when appropriate, charitable giving for tax planning purposes which fulfill philanthropic commitments. These charitable vehicles include creating private charitable foundations, charitable lead annuity trusts or unitrusts (CLAT and CLUT) and charitable remainder annuity trusts or unitrusts (CRAT and CRUT). Of course, the benefits of overlapping the charitable foundation or trusts with other estate planning techniques, such as a family limited partnership, can produce outstanding positive tax, estate and financial planning results.
Through our representation of corporate and business organizations, we help business owners structure succession planning and business transactions that facilitate estate planning and reduce income taxes.