Estate Planning 

At Cavitch, estate planning goes well beyond the usual plans offered by most law firms.

While wills and living trusts are the basic estate planning building blocks, we also implement plans involving more sophisticated features, such as:

·         "A-B" funded living trusts

·         Qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTS)

·         Grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATS)

·         Sales to defective grantor trusts, private annuities, family partnerships and limited liability companies

·         Charitable trusts

·         Private foundations

·         Generation-skipping trusts

·         Dynasty trusts

·         Special Needs Planning

While we have a wealth of experience and skills employing sophisticated techniques in the proper circumstances, our focus is always the client's goals and desires. Unlike other planners, we never let the “tax tail” “wag the dog” of your planning without careful consideration and approval.

In fact, non-tax goals — such as leaving property in trust to be managed for the benefit of your loved ones, or to provide an incentive to younger family members to be productive in their own right and not simply rely on an inheritance from parents or grandparents — are often very important considerations for a client's plan.

We represent individuals and families who own and operate a wide range of businesses. In that connection, we are frequently called upon to advise clients with respect to a variety of tools to aid in corporate succession planning to transition the ownership of a family business from an older generation of owners to a younger generation.