Estate Planning

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Estate Planning

Our Estate Planning attorneys work in two major areas:


all aspects of the accumulation, preservation and distribution of wealth among family members
succession planning for family-owned and other closely held businesses
Individuals, families and businesses that are facing the challenges of succession planning rely on our considerable expertise. Our estate planning clients have family net worths ranging from several hundred thousand dollars to more than 100 million dollars.

Services

Our individual clients want to plan transfers of their wealth, both during their lifetime and at death, to achieve their family planning goals. They also want to minimize the effects of federal and state transfer taxes (estate, gift, inheritance and generation-skipping), and federal, state and local income taxes.

Our family-owned and other closely held business clients are interested in planning successful ownership and management successions.

Both individuals and business clients benefit from our holistic approach. We appreciate the personal and business issues important to clients, and we apply our diverse experience to solution-based counsel. That experience includes: federal and state estate taxes, federal gift taxes, estate and trust administration, federal and state income taxes, general business law and counseling, employee benefits and life insurance matters.

We provide these services:

Estate planning and administration


structuring current ownership arrangements (e.g., family limited partnerships, tenancies-in-common and other arrangements which will qualify for valuation discounts)
planning wealth transfers (both lifetime gifts and testamentary transfers)
drafting all types of estate planning documents (including wills, trusts, powers of attorney, health care directives and beneficiary designations)
business and legal advice concerning life insurance arrangements
business and legal advice concerning retirement planning (including both qualified plans and nonqualified arrangements)
preparation and review of federal and state income, estate and gift tax returns
representation of individuals, estates and trusts in federal and state tax audits and disputes,
administration of probate estates, trusts and foundations
Business succession planning:


close corporation agreements and other business control arrangements
operating agreements for limited liability companies and partnerships
buy-sell agreements (including creative funding arrangements)
business acquisitions and sales
employment contracts
voting trust arrangements
reorganization arrangements



Notable Engagements


For multiple clients, we have formed and helped administer family limited partnerships or family limited liability companies which hold a variety of different types of assets (e.g., portfolios of traded securities, investment real estate and operating businesses). These arrangements have not only facilitated the long-term family management of these assets but have also enabled our clients to qualify for significant valuation discounts for gift tax purposes (when ownership interests are transferred during lifetime) and/or estate tax purposes (when ownership interests are retained until death).


We effectively completely rewrote an estate plan after the testator's death through the use of multiple disclaimers by the estate's beneficiaries. This action enabled our clients to minimize tax liabilities (by eliminating avoidable generation-skipping transfer taxes), better provide for the financial needs of a disabled child and more equitably distribute assets among the grandchildren's generation. In this same engagement, we adopted an appropriate but aggressive methodology for valuing the estate's most significant asset (resulting in several million dollars in potential estate tax savings). That valuation was accepted by the IRS without challenge.


For multiple clients, we have structured installment sales of family-owned businesses (usually organized as either S corporations or partnerships) to intentionally defective grantor trusts ("IDGTs") created for the benefit of the next generation. Because of the use of the IDGT format, all capital gains were avoided by the selling generation. This format also enabled the buying generation to use the entire pre-tax cash flow of the business to fund the installment purchase obligations. During the installment purchase periods, the income tax obligations and net cash flow to the selling generation were the same as if it had continued to own the business.


We perfected the Shared-Ownership™ arrangement for the ownership of life insurance policies by more than one owner. Although similar to some forms of split-dollar arrangements, the Shared-Ownership™ method provides greater flexibility to owners in designing (and redesigning) their joint ownership of the policy. This ownership method is being actively marketed by the Hartford Life Insurance Companies. One of our clients, Elite Saver Systems, acts as the third-party administrator for policies owned under the Shared-Ownership™ arrangement.


For more information, please feel free to contact our Estate Planning Practice Area Chair, Fredrick Fisher. To learn more about a specific attorney in the Estate Planning Practice Area, please click on his or her name listed below.