Wealth Preservation & Estate Planning

DiMuroGinsberg assists clients with estate planning and wealth preservation, including the preparation of simple wills, powers of attorney, advance medical directives, lifetime and testamentary trusts and more advanced documents for the larger estates. DiMuroGinsberg approaches wealth preservation and estate planning for clients in an holistic manner, taking into account not only gift and estate tax considerations and the dispositive preferences of the client, but also considerations relating to family business ownership and transferring it to future generations. The firm reviews clients' selection and allocation of particular assets that both implement the client's goals and are appropriate to income, gift and estate tax savings for the client, the estate and future generations. The review of a client's estate often employs the firm's extensive experience in commercial real estate and in representing corporations and other business entities. In many cases the firm's attorneys recommend that clients begin planning lifetime gifting strategies to take full advantage of available tax exemptions and exclusions, which may include

• annual gifts to children, grandchildren and others which use the gift tax annual exclusion
• effective use of life insurance trusts
• use of grantor retained trusts, charitable trusts, residential annuity trusts and similar gift and estate tax mitigation tools where appropriate
• lifetime allocation of appreciating assets in a manner to shelter asset appreciation from gift and estate tax
• use of tax credits and asset allocation to limit effects of generation skipping transfer tax on future generations
• strategies using family owned business entity strategies to pass family businesses and farms to the next generation while avoiding liquidation to pay estate taxes

Planning for the firm's clients with significant or growing estates typically takes full advantage of the marital deduction and the unified credit to reduce or eliminate estate taxes, and use of post-mortem strategies to further reduce income and estate taxes and reduce the tax impact on future generations. The firm also assists clients with planning strategies to protect assets from claims of creditors.