Wealth Planning

Proper wealth planning helps individuals and their families reduce taxes and do a better job of providing for the long-term best interest of their families and favorite charities.

However, decision-making is not always easy when it comes to managing and planning for wealth. Some of the tax issues involved can be technical and complicated, and there can be serious consequences if assets pass in the wrong way to a beneficiary who is too young, or has too many problems, to receive it outright. Likewise, proper long-term charitable planning often involves private foundations and other charitable vehicles that may be subject to complicated tax and anti-abuse rules.

As U.S. News – Best Law Firms 2020 “Law Firm of the Year” in Tax Law, we can help you with this challenging process. We provide clear and practical advice, and we don’t speak “legalese.” We can help you understand the complex rules that come with this territory, and we listen so that we can properly understand your family and personal issues.

Our lawyers will work hand-in-hand with you to develop an effective long-term plan for your wealth and make sure that plan is properly implemented when the time comes. We also represent taxpayers in estate, gift, and fiduciary income tax audits and litigation, fiduciaries and beneficiaries in estate and trust disputes, and fiduciaries in actions brought by or against estates and trusts.

With our global network, we represent U.S. clients with foreign property or who have non-citizen spouses, citizens of foreign countries residing in the U.S., and foreign clients with property in the U.S. or U.S. citizen spouses. We also advise European clients (particularly in Switzerland and Germany) on the best way to structure U.S. undertakings and on other tax planning opportunities.

Your plans for the success you have achieved are too important to mismanage. The lawyers at Alston & Bird can help protect what you value.

• Created a family limited partnership for a high net worth individual, allowing the transfer of over $80 million of assets at a tax cost of $5 million
• Designed and implemented a long-term plan for the estate of an internationally acclaimed artist that will allow around $30 million of self-created artworks to pass through many generations at little or not tax estate and gift tax cost
• Settled a gift tax case before the U.S. Tax Court for a fraction of the disputed tax amount, just before trial and with virtually no media attention
• Favorably settled a complex matter involving Georgia's rule against perpetuities and other arcane rules of will and trust construction, and structuring the settlement so as to achieve substantial tax savings for our client
• Won an important case involving the construction of a trust agreement and prevented a decedent's ex-husband from taking a share of a trust created for her benefit
• Steered the estate of a German citizen who died in the U.S. through a maze of treaty-based tax proceedings that avoided the imposition of $20 million in unfair estate taxes
• Designed a plan for a Swiss client that will allow him to pass an unlimited amount of U.S. property to a U.S trust for the benefit of his U.S. citizen spouse and descendants, absolutely free of any U.S. estate, gift or generation-skipping transfer tax for a long as the trust lasts
• Advised the estate of a well-known Swiss author on the most tax-efficient means of managing the decedent's U.S. licensing arrangements
• Advise European clients (particularly in Switzerland and Germany) on the best way of structuring their U.S. affairs and on tax planning opportunities they can take advantage of before a move to the U.S.
• Advised numerous entrepreneurs on early transfer of stock and options, at little or no gift tax cost, removing millions of dollars of assets from their taxable estates
• Provided comprehensive wealth planning and other tax advice to a 34-year old entrepreneur whose company was acquired by a public company
• Employed the use of FLPs in connection with many business acquisitions and IPOs to reduce the selling shareholders' long-range estate and gift tax liability