Overview
Estate tax planning involves the orderly transfer of assets from one generation to another at the lowest tax cost. Accomplishing these objectives requires the use of many sophisticated tax strategies such as the marital deduction bequest (both outright and in trust), generation skipping transfers, lifetime transfers (either outright or with a retained income or remainder interest), choice of residency and various forms of charitable giving. Much of our estate planning involves succession planning for the closely held business and the tax effect on the entity as well as on the individual owners. We have extensive experience representing clients in estate tax valuation audits and residency issues between New York and Florida, as well as probate litigation. We also provide advice regarding estate and income tax planning for qualified plans and Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). Estate planning involves more than just tax considerations, and we pride ourselves in our abilities as counselors.
Sophisticated post-mortem strategies can often save substantial estate and income tax. Our handling of family relationships in an objective and impartial manner is often important to managing the estate administration process.
Planning techniques include:
- Irrevocable life insurance trusts
- Grantor retained interest annuity and unitrusts (GRITs and GRATs)
- Self-canceling installment notes (SCINs)
- Defective grantor trusts
- Qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs)
- Change of state residency
- Revocable living trusts
- Generation skipping trusts
- Family limited partnerships
- Charitable gifts, trusts and foundations
