Tax Focus Planning

Our proficiency signifies just the beginning of our contributions. We forge consultative alliances with clients, listening attentively and adapting flexibly to industry shifts, including Tax Focused Planning. With personalized attention, strategic advice, and actionable guidance, we empower clients to overcome current obstacles and achieve future aspirations.

At Levin Schreder & Carey, we believe that estate planning is about providing solutions tailored to each client’s needs. We view estate planning as a process – started early and carried out over an extended period of time. Estate planning is more than preparing wills and trusts – the goal is to use the appropriate tools to achieve each client’s specific and unique objectives. We look to develop long-term relationships with clients to better understand their desires and perspectives. We strive to guide our clients through planning, which can sometimes seem complicated, by applying both our legal knowledge and our experience with family and business issues faced by many clients.

For us, income tax planning and gift and estate tax planning are complementary pursuits, which is why we often refer to ourselves simply as “tax lawyers.”
While many of our clients focus on minimizing the burden of gift taxes or estate taxes, we are always mindful of the income tax ramifications of any estate tax planning technique. For example, transferring interests in family businesses or family investment partnerships with estate tax goals in mind also requires careful consideration of the income tax consequences for the owners, whether individuals or trusts.

We advise families with private trust companies or family offices regarding the management of those entities, compliance with regulatory requirements and the duties of a trustee. We assist these families in creating policy manuals, operating procedures and other governing documents tailored to their needs and structures. We actively coordinate with a client’s other advisors, including other law firms and accountants, when questions involving areas, such as securities, real estate and corporate, arise to ensure that the client’s complete array of legal needs is addressed.

For over 25 years, we have represented owners of family businesses, some of which are first-generation businesses where our client is the family’s entrepreneur and others that are in their third or fourth generation of family ownership. Our business planning services include counseling these clients in structuring new business entities as well as with acquisitions and sales.  As a result, we routinely work with these clients’ other advisors to ensure that tax and estate planning issues in complex corporate or real estate transactions are appropriately addressed and that each transaction is structured in the most tax-advantageous manner.

Many of our clients have charitable giving goals.  We work closely with them to structure their charitable giving in a manner that achieves both their personal goals as well as beneficial tax treatment using a variety of methods, including donor advised funds, charitable split interest trusts, restricted gifts, conservation easements and private foundations.  Often we are able to enhance the amount of assets available for charitable purposes and the gift and estate tax benefits to our clients.  Many of our clients have large art or other collections which require special estate planning, often with a charitable end-goal.

Although a primary focus of our practice has always been planning and counseling, we also represent our clients in both administrative and court proceedings involving tax disputes, particularly with the IRS. When certainty is required in tax-related matters, we can work with our clients to prepare requests for private letter rulings from the IRS.  We also represent our clients in income, gift and estate tax audits.  These proceedings often involve complex property or business valuation issues which arise in the assessment of gift, estate and generation-skipping taxes.

We advise fiduciaries charged with the administration of estates and trusts.  With respect to decedents’ estates, we guide fiduciaries through the probate process, appearing in court as required and assist in the collection and transfer of assets and resolution of claims, as well as the implementation of the decedent’s estate plan.  We prepare any required state and federal estate and inheritance tax returns and work in partnership with the estate’s accountants to ensure that fiduciary income tax matters are handled in the most advantageous manner possible.

As part of our comprehensive planning services, we structure pre-marital and post-marital agreements for our clients.  In pre-marital planning, we also advise on the form of asset ownership in order to maintain the character of property after the marriage. In dissolution of marriage actions, we act as “special tax counsel” to divorce attorneys to structure property settlement, support and alimony agreements, including creating trusts to minimize tax consequences.