Estate Planning

Estate planning means navigating the complex and changing tax implications. We can help tame the complexity by taking a holistic approach that addresses both your business and personal needs. We start by listening to your needs, values, objectives, and dynamics, and then build a strategy that hits the sweet spot.

We help clients with all aspects of personal tax planning, including income, estate and gift taxes, and charitable giving.

We regularly assist with:

• Estate planning, including drafting and implementing wills, simple and complex trusts, such as revocable trusts, dynasty trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), intentionally defective grantor trusts (IDGTs), and qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs), and family limited partnerships and related services
• Asset protection planning
• Insurance planning, including irrevocable insurance trusts
• Gift planning
• Advising on and creating charitable foundations
• Probate administration and settlement of decedents’ estates
• Trust administration
• Guardianship matters
• Dealing with the Internal Revenue Service

We also counsel business owners on all areas of tax and estate planning, specifically:

• Preparing buy/sell, restrictive stock, and employment agreements
• Structuring life insurance and benefit programs to minimize tax costs (including “split-dollar” arrangements)
• Management succession and asset conservation with minimum tax cost
• Recapitalizations, gift programs, and other techniques to shift value or separate control from value
• Short- and long-term estate implications of selling or restructuring a business
• Planning for liquidity in the event of an owner’s death