Tax

Wealth Transfer Planning

Butler Snow’s Tax and Wealth Transfer Planning team seeks to understand the client’s personal philosophy and family goals and then assist in developing and implementing a well-designed plan to achieve an orderly transfer of the client’s wealth.  Achieving the best result depends on a careful application of legal expertise to the client’s goals.  Normally, the final plan minimizes transfer taxes and protects the assets of the client for future generations.  The process covers more than the traditional preparation of last wills and testaments, and in many cases, takes planning that includes innovative techniques to resolve problems.

Butler Snow’s international tax practice delivers sound tax and estate planning advice for clients who reside outside of the United States but who have U.S. immigration status, U.S. family members or U.S. investments.  We work closely with local counsel in our clients’ home countries to provide solutions that meet our clients’ wealth transfer goals while minimizing their global tax exposure.

Over time, as situations change, clients may wish to adjust their goals and plans.  We are there to assist in meeting these challenges as they arise, or in anticipating such changes.  Some representative areas of activity that Butler Snow’s Tax and Wealth Transfer Planning team addresses include:

Lifetime planning

• Durable powers of attorney for medical and financial decision-making authority
• Special needs trust for disability purposes
• Shareholder agreements
• Limited partnerships
• Limited liability companies
• Asset protection
• Planning for charitable gifts
• Private foundations (formation and operations)
• Lifetime gifts and generation-skipping transfers
• Life insurance trust
• Minors trust
• Tax advantaged trust
• Pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements
• Planning for education obligations

Succession planning

• Basic planning documents (trust and wills)
• Planning with retirement assets (trust)
• Charitable gifts
• Incentive trust
• Use of items listed under lifetime planning
• Disclaimers
• Business succession issues
• Gift techniques

Estate and trust administration

• Advising fiduciaries on tax elections
• Working with appraisers
• Assisting in the preparation of the estate tax return
• Post-mortem income and estate tax planning
• IRS Estate tax examinations
• Sale of items, if necessary
• Marital deduction analysis
• Estate controversies among beneficiaries
• Probate proceedings
• Coordinate ancillary administration

International tax

• Planning for non-U.S. citizen spouses
• Pre-U.S. immigration planning
• Foreign trust planning
• Structuring purchases of U.S. investments for non-U.S. persons
• Addressing CFC/PFIC issues for U.S. persons residing abroad
• GRAT/IDGT planning for fund principals
• Expatriation 

For additional information on Wealth Transfer Planning, please contact Jay A. Travis III or Kurt G. Rademacher.