Estate & Tax Planning

ESTATE PLANNING 

You may spend many years accumulating wealth, or working to achieve the liquidity event that results in more immediate wealth. Ensuring that your efforts result in a positive impact on the lives of your children, your grandchildren, and your generations beyond, is why you design and execute an estate plan.

Estate planning may be as simple as creating a will or a trust to avoid probate. It can involve taking advantage of the available unified credits to minimize estate taxes, and ensure the desired disposition of your estate.

Depending on the size of your estate, consideration of other more advanced estate planning techniques may be suitable such as Irrevocable Insurance Trusts, Charitable Remainder Trusts or Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts. Integration of a your business succession plan is an important piece of the estate plan when applicable. 

The firm works with a number of law firms that specialize in estate planning that we can refer you to when it is determined in the discovery stage that estate planning work is necessary. If you establish a relationship with a referred attorney, it is separate from that of the firm, although the firm typically acts as lead advisor for oversight as a component of your comprehensive wealth management plan. 

TAX PLANNING 

The firm is not qualified to render tax advice, but does seek to manage portfolios in a tax efficient manner when suitable for your portfolio. For example, tax-free bonds may be utilized in a taxable account when the taxable equivalent yields available are higher than the taxable yields as can be the case when you are in one of the higher tax brackets. When considering equity funds and managers for your taxable accounts, factors exhibiting tax efficiency such as low security turnover may be emphasized. 

We believe that your CPA or tax attorney can be in a unique position to provide a helpful “checks and balance” perspective of the investment process and other wealth management components that we put in place for you. We like to work in concert with your tax advisor to ensure that we are achieving the highest net returns for your estate year after year. We maintain a network of tax professionals that we work with and can refer you to if necessary.