Tax Planning

A retirement plan is often where individuals start planning for their future. The benefits afforded by those plans should be considered when planning for your legacy.

We advise clients concerning compliance with minimum distribution rules applicable to qualified retirement plans and IRAs and methods to postpone taxation of benefits. We also advise clients concerning selection of beneficiaries, including the use of trusts. Recent illustrative experiences include:

• Planning for designation of a charity as the beneficiary of an IRA
• Negotiating with IRA custodians concerning the use of custom beneficiary designation forms, permissible distribution methods, separation of retirement accounts into sub-accounts for beneficiaries and trustee-to-trustee transfers
• Drafting custom beneficiary designation forms to preserve maximum distribution periods, to consider potential disclaimers and to account for separate beneficiary shares subject to trusts
• Tax planning for real estate transactions through partnerships and LLCs
• Sales of assets to intentionally defective grantor trusts
• Use of partnerships for succession management purposes
• Design of exit strategies for owners of both closely held and publicly traded stock

For more information on tax planning relevant to trusts, estates, closely held companies, and more, please contact the related professionals on this page.