Gift & Estate Tax

Transfers of property made during life or at death may be subject to as many as three separate transfer taxes: The gift tax, the estate tax and the generation-skipping transfer tax. However, in recent years, Congress has drastically increased both the estate and gift tax exemptions and the generation-skipping transfer exemption, allowing many estates now to pass to the next generation without the imposition of any federal transfer taxes. Likewise, Congress has also enacted other changes that make planning for both spouses’ exemptions much for flexible. While the value of many estates are now below the federal estate tax exemption, state inheritance and state level estate taxes still require careful planning to avoid any unanticipated transfer taxes at death. With the current increased federal estate tax exemption amount and the greater flexibility now possible in planning for both spouses’ exemptions, many individuals no longer need to plan for minimizing estate taxes, and families may now potentially incur substantial capital gain taxes on the future sale of their property unless unnecessary “estate tax” planning is detected and unwound.

With the help of Jennings Haug Keleher McLeod Waterfall’s Trust and Estate attorneys, clients effectively achieve their wealth transfer goals, and, at the same time, minimizing transfer and income tax consequences. Dedicated to making a challenging subject understandable to our clients, we clearly present technical and legal information.

Many of our Trust and Estate attorneys are experienced in the preparation of income, gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer tax returns. This experience is invaluable in developing creative solutions to help you minimize transfer and income taxes.

We welcome the opportunity to help you solve any looming estate and gift tax matter.

Our Trust and Estate attorneys have experience in forming a variety of tax-exempt organizations and in obtaining favorable rulings from the Internal Revenue Service approving organizations’ tax-exempt status. We also can help protect the ongoing tax-exempt status of organizations by guiding clients in the proper administration of the charity, including the handling of tax returns, making distributions, avoiding any prohibited transactions and complying with corporate governance matters.

We encourage you to contact us to help you develop your own personal philanthropic plan.