Tax, Trusts & Estates

Good tax planning starts with good business planning. Who will run your business when you step down? Which of your investments are easily reducible to cash and which are tied up in businesses or assets that require their own succession plans or disposition plans in order to liquidate them by way of a sale or transfer of ownership? What specific assets are earmarked for specific stakeholders and how will they be managed until the right time comes to transfer these assets? How can you balance growth in these assets against maximizing their value at the time of disposition or transfer?

Our method involves drilling down on an asset-by-asset basis in order to determine the best way to preserve and/or transition these assets and the most advantageous timing when taking the overall plan into account. We work with our clients to prepare estate plans that start with a good business plan as their foundation.

Good tax planning requires a structure that meets the client’s goals. A good starting point for any estate plan is to make sure there are adequate life insurance, guardianship and care arrangements to protect your immediate family in the event of catastrophe. Making sure beneficiary designations on specific accounts are correct is another preliminary step.

For younger taxpayers a trust may be too invasive and cut off control over critical assets in ways that would not be feasible. For those with portfolios of leveraged hard assets and little liquidity, funding the payment of estate taxes or even the costs of certain estate planning strategies may pose a challenge.

We believe in molding the structure of your plan to correspond to where you are now, and where you will be years from now.

With tax planning in general and estate planning specifically, there are steps you must take to re-title or transfer various assets, pay tax impositions, and restructure your holdings as dictated by the plan. Once certain steps are taken, they are final and complete that part of the structure. Just as with putting in the walls and the exterior of a home, it is still possible to make an addition or change the blueprint, but the process becomes more complex once the exterior of the structure is completed.

Setting up trusts, undertaking succession planning, divesting assets, making lifetime gifts, transferring shares through a Family Limited Partnership, and the like are final dispositions. These types of transactional actions are final and are part of watching the estate plan take shape during the testator’s life. On the one hand, it may be bittersweet to begin the process of taking apart what you took a lifetime to build, but on the other hand these are concrete and visible manifestations of your plan coming to life.

Our tax, trusts & estates lawyers know how to put the finishing touches on a plan and execute the necessary documents to effectuate your wishes. But, there is always room for a remodel if situations change over time, so we are sure to always set up all estate planning documents and estate plans in general with the necessary flexibility to address any situation that may unfold.