• Structuring transactions to minimize tax consequences
• Drafting Operating Agreements, Stock Purchase Agreements, Asset Purchase Agreements, and Shareholder Agreements, including restrictive transfer provisions
• Planning for the smooth and tax-efficient succession of family-owned businesses
• Establishing Voting Trusts and Voting Agreements
• Selecting the correct entity to carry out business planning, operations, and tax objectives: limited liability companies, corporations and elections for S-corporation status, limited or general partnerships, joint ventures
• Conducting all forms of due diligence, sale and acquisition transactions
• Advising on general business and corporate matters
• Drafting and reviewing contracts and leases
• Working as part of a team with lawyers within other multidisciplinary groups on employment law issues, employee benefits, financing, etc., to provide comprehensive client service

• Adoptions, foster parenting and surrogacies
• Complex custody issues, including multi-jurisdictional issues and abuse/neglect cases
• Divorce, including child custody, visitation, spousal support and equitable distribution
• Divorce, including high-asset cases involving closely held businesses, pension valuations and spousal support issues
• Pre-marital agreements
• Same-sex marriage issues

Wills, Estates and Trusts

• Drafting and reviewing traditional estate planning documents, including wills, trusts, financial and medical powers of attorney, living wills
• Structuring motivational and protective planning for young, imprudent or special needs beneficiaries and educational matters
• Planning and executing sophisticated wealth transfer and estate “freeze” techniques through trusts: life insurance trusts, sale to grantor trusts, charitable trusts, spousal lifetime access trusts, generation skipping trusts, GRATs, CRUTs, and QPRTs 
• Crafting asset protection strategies
• Planning for international assets and non-US citizens
• Creating equitable and respectful marital agreements, both before and after marriage
• Preparing Federal Estate Tax Returns (Form 706) for taxable estates and electing portability
• Counseling on disputed tax matters, including estate and gift tax audits, valuation issues
• Minimizing potential tax burden for transferring closely held businesses and providing orderly transfer of control to next generation
• Establishing and guiding nonprofit and tax exempt organizations through their life cycle - formation, application for exempt status, administration
• Mediation services for all wills, estates and trusts matters
• Litigating complex personal matters, including contested probate and trust matters, will or trust interpretation, tortious interference with inheritance, guardian/conservatorships, administration matters, accounting and distribution issues

Federal Taxation

• Advising owners of closely held businesses on strategies to minimize federal taxes on the sale or purchase of businesses
• Analyzing methods of restructuring and reorganizing a business to eliminate exposure to federal taxes upon the sale of corporate stock
• Devising and consulting on intra-family business succession plans
• Counseling and advising clients concerning flow-through entity taxation matters, such as for partnerships, limited liability companies and S-corporations
• Representing and counseling tax-exempt organizations
• Assisting with choice of business entity to achieve maximum tax advantages and planning
• Resolving contested tax issues by obtaining rulings and favorable audit or appeal results from IRS

Closely Held Business Services

• Structuring transactions to minimize tax consequences
• Creating operating agreements, stock purchase agreements, asset purchase agreements, and shareholder agreements, including restrictive transfer provisions
• Planning for the smooth and tax-efficient succession of family-owned businesses
• Establishing voting trusts and voting agreements
• Selecting the correct entity to carry out business planning, operations, and tax objectives: limited liability companies, corporations and elections for S-corporation status, limited or general partnerships, joint ventures
• Conducting all forms of due diligence, sale and acquisition transactions
• Advising on general business and corporate matters
• Drafting and reviewing contracts and leases
• Working as part of a team with attorneys within other multidisciplinary groups on employment law issues, employee benefits, financing, etc., to provide comprehensive client service

Attorneys in our Wills, Estates & Trusts Practice Group work daily to address our clients’ estate planning and fiduciary administration needs. We advise clients in areas of traditional and complex estate and gift planning, business succession planning, charitable giving, asset protection, probate administration, and taxation. Our experience also includes issues unique to assets outside of the U.S. and non-citizens subject to U.S. tax laws.

At Spilman, we strongly believe that a solid estate plan is more than a will or trust. We work with our clients to develop an individualized, comprehensive estate plan that addresses their personal and professional concerns and objectives. We act not only as attorneys for, but also as counselors to, business owners, executives, high-net-worth individuals, professionals and their families to help them achieve their unique goals.   

We also handle matters involving income, estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxation, tax-exempt organizations, and controversies before the IRS and the courts. In this regard, we often work with our clients’ other professional advisors to achieve their objectives effectively and are frequently retained by other professionals because of our knowledge and experience in these complicated areas.

Our Wills & Estates and Trusts attorneys also focus on the probate of decedents’ estates and the administration of their trusts and are sensitive to complex family dynamics. We advise corporate and individual fiduciaries with their fiduciary duties and serve as counsel when litigation is involved. With attorneys qualified to act in multiple states, nonresidents frequently retain Spilman to serve as local counsel in probate and tax matters.  

Our services include:
 

• Estate planning, disability planning and wealth preservation
• Retirement and tax planning
• Wills and trusts
• Sophisticated gift and estate tax minimization planning strategies
• Life insurance trusts
• Trust and estate administration
• Audits, examinations and other controversies before the IRS and state tax agencies
• Business succession planning
• Family limited partnerships and limited liability companies
• Mediator services for all wills, estates and trusts controversies
• Estate, trust and tax litigation
• Creating and administering charitable organizations
• Charitable giving
• Pre- and post-nuptial agreements

For more information regarding our Wills, Estates & Trusts Practice Group, contact:

 

John F. Allevato
304.340.3885
jallevato@spilmanlaw.com

David R. Croft
304.230.6952
dcroft@spilmanlaw.com