Estate & Tax Planning

The largest check your children may ever write will be the one to the IRS for estate taxes. Understandably, many clients don’t want that to happen. They want their assets to benefit their children, rather than their children’s creditors or ex-spouses. At the same time, they don’t want the inheritance to destroy their children’s drive and motivation.

As Wealth Managers, we work closely with our clients and their advisors to see that their estate plan documents reflect their goals. To maximize our clients’ tax savings, we implement strategies both during their lives and after they’re gone.

We may employ some or all of the following strategies:

  • Leveraging Family Gifts - With planning, you can increase what you give to your family and decrease what you give to the tax man. Various techniques with fancy titles and acronyms can be used to transfer a lot more than $12,000/year to other family members while a client is alive.
  • Leveraging Charitable Gifts - Giving is great for the soul. We believe People who give to charity live longer and are happier. We try to make them, their families and their charities wealthier, too. Give less to the IRS and more to your charities through the use of many common estate planning techniques.
    • Charitable Lead Annuity Trust (CLAT)
    • Charitable Remainder Unitrust (CRUT)
    • Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust (CRAT)
    • Donor Advised Fund (DAF)
    • Private Foundation