Estate Planning
Attorneys at the CVM Law Group prepare comprehensive estate plans for businesses and professional clients in Sacramento and Irvine, California and in Memphis, Tennessee. The firm's attorneys have extensive experience in the preparation of wills and trusts, trust administration, and probate proceedings.
Because the bulk of their estates are often tied up in the business, with minimal liquidity, real estate developers and other business owners face particular challenges in formulating an estate plan. Estate planning in this context needs to account for issues such as how to provide enough liquidity to cover the administration of the estate while assuring a smooth transition of the business to the successive generation. For instance, a will that left a business to heirs who had to sell the business to pay the estate taxes would frustrate the purpose of the estate plan.
Attorneys at the CVM Law Group understand these issues and help their clients make the most of tax planning benefits, such as counseling clients regarding elections to avoid the imposition of generation-skipping transfer tax.
Administration, Litigation
Lawyers at the CVM Law Group have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to shepherd an estate through the trust and estate administration process, either through trust administration or probate administration. We work closely with our clients' tax preparers to ensure deductions are taken in a manner that maximizes the tax benefits to the estate, and assist our clients in qualifying for special use valuations, extensions of time to file or pay estate taxes, or deferrals of estate tax where appropriate. When will contests or other challenges arise, the litigators on the CVM legal team utilize their trial skills to effectively advocate for their clients' interests.
Estate Planning in a Shifting Environment
With major changes to the federal estate tax and related state action, estate and tax planning has become especially challenging in recent years. Significant changes to the law in this area have been enacted, and more Congressional activity in this area is expected in the near future. In the meantime, diligent and thorough estate planning requires paying special care and attention not only to present tax laws, but to what effect decisions made today may have on future estates.
While no one can predict with total confidence what Congress will do, the attorneys at CVM Law Group have the knowledge and experience gained from decades of estate planning, probate and trust administration, and estate taxation matters to provide clients with sound, comprehensive estate planning. In the Sacramento, Irvine, or Memphis areas, contact CVM Law Group to discuss your estate planning needs.
