In our Estate Planning practice, we help people provide for their loved ones and avoid taxes using wills and trusts that are designed for each client’s family and financial situation.

 

Gift and estate taxes remain an issue for those with a net worth greater than $5.75 million. We use wills and trusts designed to minimize or avoid gift and estate taxes for these clients.

 

The vast majority of Americans – including most of our clients – need not worry about estate taxes but can still save tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital-gains taxes on their residences and other assets that have gone up in value during their lifetimes.  We use trusts and wills designed to avoid capital gains taxes for these clients.

 

Trusts allow legacies to stay in the family. Say, for example, a married couple leaves their estates outright to their married children. Then one of the children later dies young, leaving children of her own, having owned everything, including her parents’ legacies, in joint names with her husband. If the husband later re-marries, a large part of this inheritance will wind up going to the second wife instead of to the grandchildren.

 

Leaving things in trust rather than outright allows you to both avoid taxes and guarantees that your life savings stay in your family for your children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren to enjoy. Trust beneficiaries can use and enjoy trust assets which remain protected from divorce, widowed son-in-law or daughter-in-law remarriage, bankruptcy, credit-card and student-loan debt, tax liens, automobile accident lawsuits, con artists or losses from unwise investments or business schemes,

 

Please contact us if you wish to both save taxes and protect your legacy for your family with individualized estate planning.