Estate Planning

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Preserve and manage your estate in the event of death or disability. Ensure your life's accumulated wealth is distributed to whom you choose with significant tax savings of hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. 

What Types of Risks Are Associated with Not Having a Properly Executed Estate Plan?

Here are just a few:

• Your family business may not survive the transition between owners and management, and the burden of payment of estate tax
• Your estate assets could be tied up in probate court, leaving no access to your beneficiaries for potentially years and exorbitant professional fees
• A significant portion of your estate may go to the government in the form of estate, generation skipping and /or income taxes on "income in respect of a decedent" (IRD)
• Your minor children could be left in the hands of a court appointed guardian, or receive funds outright, prior to learning how to manage those assets
• Failure to consider an equitable division of your estate between beneficiaries may lead to bitter disputes, strained relations and costly litigation
• Your spouse may remarry and leave nothing to your children
• Potential disability or incapacity could lead to a court appointed guardian, excessive financial costs and mismanagement of assets

Estate Tax Services Offered:

• MINIMIZE TAX: Or eliminate estate taxes using the most advanced planning techniques
• OVERALL PLAN: Work with client & other professionals to achieve specific goals that include the "Family" and "Family of Business"
• COMPLIANCE: We prepare all necessary federal, state & foreign filings including FORMS 706, 709, 1041, 990, 1065
• ASSET PROTECTION: Incorporate, if necessary, entities & possible asset protection into overall estate plan
• ACCOUNTING: We provide annual accounting for court proceedings & beneficiaries
• LITIGATION: Assistance with family disputes, litigation negotiations & evaluation of equitable remedies

What Basic Estate Planning Tools Do You Need to Consider?

• Last will and testament, including appointment of executor or trustee and guardian for minor children, updated regularly for life's changes
• Revocable Living Trust to avoid probate and unnecessary costs and delays in distribution of estate assets and privacy protection
• Powers of Attorney: General Financial, Durable, Mental
• Living Wills
• Appropriated titling of assets
• Proper designation of beneficiaries on retirement accounts and life insurance policies

Estate Planning Strategies for Higher Net Worth Individuals:

• Maximize use of federal estate tax exclusions
• "Tax free" annual gifting to extent of federal exclusion amounts
• Business succession planning, including incorporation of buy-sale, redemption and cross-purchase agreements
• Life insurance evaluation and use of life insurance trust to shelter proceeds from estate tax
• Qualified personal residence trusts
• Sophisticated wealth transfer techniques through use of:

1. Family limited partnerships and LLCs
2. Defective grantor trusts
3. Strategic combinations of sales and use of life-time gifts exclusions
4. Application of valuation discounts for lack of marketability and non-controlling interests for certain gifts
5. Grantor retained annuity trust and grantor retained unitrusts
6. Charitable remainder trusts

• Generation skipping tax (GST) Trust and avoidance of GST tax through notification of exemption allocation 
• Post-mortem planning through deferral of estate tax for certain closely held businesses, use of alternative valuation dates, and use of disclaimers
• Subchapter S election protection through use of Qualified Small Business Trust and Electing Small Business Trusts
• Asset protection utilizing irrevocable trusts, LLCs and other entities that can be made an integral part of the overall estate plan