Trusts & Estates
Navigating the complexities of estate planning and preservation, Roach, Lennon & Brown ensures your legacy is safeguarded both in life and for generations to come. Our Trusts and Estates practice offers an encompassing approach, spanning from the architecture of tailored estate strategies to their careful execution and administration.
For high-net-worth individuals, our expertise extends to the sculpting of robust strategies, methodically designed to protect assets and curtail estate and gift tax ramifications.
Understanding the delicate challenges of family-run enterprises, we synergize with them to not only ensure personal retirement visions and intergenerational asset conveyance but also seamlessly weave in corporate considerations when transitioning businesses within the familial fold. A hallmark of our expertise lies in crafting these strategies whilst minimizing fiscal implications, fortifying business legacies through astute succession planning. Our track record proudly reflects a history of staunchly defending such strategies against the scrutiny of the Internal Revenue Service.
Navigating the complexities of estate administration requires a delicate balance of legal wisdom and empathetic counsel. At Roach, Lennon & Brown, we excel in both. We provide comprehensive services in estate administration, ensuring that the final wishes of the deceased are honored and with the utmost respect. Our attorneys are adept at representing estates in probate proceedings, safeguarding the proper distribution of assets in adherence to testamentary directives. In instances where no will is present, our expertise extends to guiding estates through intestate proceedings, ensuring assets are allocated according to state laws and that beneficiaries' rights are diligently protected. In every endeavor, we blend our legal prowess with compassionate understanding, offering solace and clarity during emotionally challenging times.
Beyond the realm of planning and administration, our proficiency encompasses estate and trust-related litigation. This includes deft handling of will disputes, trust agreements, accountings, and instances of fiduciary duty breaches.
Our Trust and Estates offering, rendered with precision and care, includes:
- Estate Planning: Crafting and refining Wills, Health Care Proxies, and Powers of Attorney.
- Estate Administration: Probate, Intestate, and Ancillary Proceedings
- Family Business Continuity: Business Succession, Retirement Prospects, and Intergenerational Asset Transfers.
- Asset Protection: Special Needs Trusts, Medicaid Trusts, and Elder Law Planning.
- Guardianship & Guidance: Offering Fiduciary Services, Estate & Gift Tax Advisory.
- Taxation: Preparation of Estate Tax, Gift Tax, and dedicated Fiduciary Income Tax Returns for Estates and Trusts.
- Advocacy & Litigation: Robust representation in Surrogate Court proceedings, will contests, and trust litigations.
What is a unified credit?
The unified credit is applied against federal estate or gift tax liability. It's often described more easily in terms of the amount of money an individual can gift, either while alive or through a will upon death without incurring a federal estate tax or federal gift tax.
Currently that amount is 11.7 million dollars per person. And so in a well-planned estate, a married couple could transfer more than 23 million dollars to their children grandchildren or other beneficiaries without incurring an estate tax. They could also make that transfer before dying without incurring a gift tax. This law expires in 2026 at which point the exemption reverts to the 2017 level of 5.96 million dollars and President Biden has suggested the exemption should be reduced further to 3.5 million dollars. But that is not the subject of a proposal or legislation at the moment.
Who should establish a family limited liability company or family limited partnership?
A family LLC or a family LLP can be a very important planning and succession vehicle for a family business. For example a successful family business founded by mom and dad could be transferred to a family limited partnership that they both own completely. They can then over a series of years make gifts of the limited partnership interests to their children. If time allows and the values are correct, we might be able to make a complete transfer of ownership of the business while mom and dad are still alive and avoid any estate tax implications upon their deaths