Estate & Tax Planning

Proper estate and tax planning begins early and includes both lifetime and post-mortem planning. We provide individualized personal and tax consulting on a continuing basis to ensure a client’s estate plan satisfies his or her personal and business desires, objectives and concerns in the most tax-efficient manner--not only when first implemented but continually as circumstances evolve and change over the years. We are especially proud that our unique approach has generated many long-term, multi-generational relationships with our clients, their other advisers, and different areas of our practice.

Protecting the family, minimizing the costs of probate, protecting against incapacity, ensuring privacy and providing for the uninterrupted and efficient flow of funds at and after death are only a few of the considerations which guide our planning. Our charitably-inclined clients are assisted in structuring tax efficient charitable donations, including the maximization of family cash flow as a result of such contributions. Charitable giving structures may include private foundations, charitable trusts and numerous advanced charitable giving structures. In addressing a client's concerns for financial security and protection, we evaluate a variety of domestic and foreign asset-protection techniques to determine their effectiveness and applicability to the client's particular situation.

Finally, we assist our clients in the full range of post-mortem services. We provide services from complete administration of a decedent's estate to ensuring the minimization of estate tax. Specific attention is given to the tax planning opportunities available to the estate's beneficiaries during and after the administration period.

Contact Attorneys who Practice in This Area:

H. Stephen Merlin
W. Anthony Turner
Scott Merlin
Joshua Berman
Leslie Kehoe
Brent W. Herrin
Catherine Diffley