A major part of your MASTER PLAN involves an estate plan that is both current and reflective of your stage of life. Your life is not static, but dynamic and constantly evolving. Often estate planning documents and strategies do not keep pace and become outdated. We assist both individuals and families in the creation of estate plans designed to further their personal and financial goals. We work with our clients to utilize lifetime estate strategies in dealing with their property and assets. Through our network of attorneys, we assist our clients with estate balancing, gift-giving, and charitable planning to reduce the impact of estate taxes.
Services provided include the preparation of wills, trusts, durable powers of attorney, health care proxies, and living wills; documents which are designed to couple with the existing financial plans and insurance coverage of our clients.
If trust documents have been established as a result of the planning process, we can assist client’s in transferring their assets into either revocable or irrevocable trusts, a process called Trust Funding. Additionally, clients may utilize charitable giving techniques for a variety of purposes to benefit the charities they wish to support. We can help trust fund these types of trusts as well. Clients my utilize a Charitable Remainder Trust to minimize the impact of capital gains taxes by exchanging low cost basis property for a lifetime stream of income during their lifetimes and a charitable gift upon death, or a Charitable Lead trust, or Private Foundation to minimize estate taxes.
Our network of estate professionals routinely assists clients with the administration of estates. They will advise Executors of estates on every step of the probate process, from the filing of the first petition with the Probate Court to the issuance of the Final Judgment Decree. They will gather asset information and prepare and file both state and federal estate tax returns. They will be involved with the estate administration process every step of the way.