ESTATE PLANNING

We listen, we understand, we make a difference. We are committed to the peace of mind and
financial well-being of our clients, their families, and their loved ones. Our estate planning team
develops strong relationships with our clients, listening to their wishes, concerns, and specific
circumstances. Our attorneys counsel clients on their options and provide creative solutions to
implement our clients’ plans. As counselors, we recognize preserving wealth for families and their
loved ones is an important priority. We focus on the needs of our clients and their loved ones in
designing estate plans to provide both protection and flexibility, while fulfilling clients’ estate
planning wishes.

• Why Clients need an estate plan:
   Clients want their wealth to be preserved for future generations.
   Some clients have family business interests that require unique planning and strategies to
  continue those businesses.

•  Some clients have a taxable estate and need specialized tax planning.

•  Some clients have charitable goals and beneficiaries which they would like to support even
  after death.

•  Some clients have young children and would like to choose a guardian to take care of their
  children’s personal needs as well as their financial assets.
   Some clients are concerned about personal incapacity during life and wish to grant a durable
  power to a trusted advisor to help manage their assets during their lifetime and select an
  appropriate surrogate individual to make decisions regarding their health.
  Our estate planning team can address the clients’ individual needs, and draft various documents
  to accomplish their objectives, including, for example, a Last Will and Testament, Revocable or
  Irrevocable Trust, Durable Power of Attorney, Designation of Health Care Surrogate, and Advance
  Directive Living Will.

TRUST AND PROBATE ADMINISTRATION

We assist our former and new clients in implementing estate plans after death. We guide these
clients’ families and their successor administrators through the legal aspects of the probate and
trust administration processes. Although the administrative process may be personally difficult for
clients who have lost loved ones, we make a difference in providing certainty and support through
the entire trust or probate administration process.
The attorneys and staff in our Trust and Probate Administration group regularly assist the families
of resident clients who have passed away. We handle ordinary administrative processes and
extraordinary ones, such as elective share proceedings, claimant and beneficiary dispute
resolution, some postmortem tax returns, planning and advice (including disclaimers), general tax
advice, tax apportionment, tax audits, tax collection, advice regarding ongoing business or
corporate matters, real estate matters, homestead determinations and special valuation
considerations. To enhance the efficiency of the Florida administrative process our team works
closely with our deceased clients’ other trusted advisors, such as custodial brokers, trust officers,
and certified public accountants.

Our group also assists non-resident clients whose deceased loved one’s own interests in real
estate throughout the state of Florida. For out of state clients, our team often works in close
collaboration with the family’s out of state attorney to ensure a smooth transition of the Florida
property title per the deceased family member’s final wishes.

TAX LAW

We make a difference in the lives and businesses of our clients by providing practical tax solutions
to fulfill our clients’ business transactions and planning goals. As our federal tax laws continue to
evolve, our tax attorneys provide up-to-date tax advice and planning in all phases of business
planning, from formation through operations and in sale transactions.
In addition to federal tax laws, many clients are also faced with state taxes, such as corporate
income taxes and documentary stamp taxes, and our attorneys assist our clients in connection
with Florida’s state law tax system. Working together with our Estate Planning attorneys, we
focus on creating estate plans that both satisfy our clients’ objectives and provide tax efficient
planning for estate, gift, generation skipping and income taxes.
Outside of estate tax planning, personal individual and business tax planning is often overlooked,
and our attorneys continually work with our clients to achieve the most efficient tax results
throughout all aspects of their personal and business transactions.
An audit, either from the IRS or the Florida Department of Revenue, can be costly and stressful.
We work closely with clients using a team approach in handling audits, offers in compromise and
installment agreements to provide peace of mind to our individual and business clients through
this process.
How we can help:

• Individual Income Tax Planning
• Business Tax Planning
• Estate Tax Planning
• Mergers and Acquisitions Tax Planning
• Tax Audit and Settlement Negotiations with the IRS or the Florida Department of Revenue
• Non-Profit Formation and Operations