Advanced Estate Planning
In addition to basic estate planning, our attorneys provide advanced estate planning for our clients. This advanced planning may be necessary due to sizeable assets, unique family relationships and situations, ownership of a business, and tax mitigation.
Dynasty Trusts – Also referred to as lifetime trusts, legacy trusts, or generation skipping tax trusts, these trusts are designed to benefit two or more generations of family descendants. Trust funds are protected from a beneficiaries creditors, a divorcing spouse, and estate taxes, while providing a financial safety net.
Asset Protection Trusts – With the enactment of the Qualified Dispositions in Trusts Act in 2017, domestic asset protection trusts (DAPT’s) are now allowed and recognized under Michigan law. These trusts provide a very high level of protection from creditors but have a number of technical formalities that must be followed. Our attorneys are knowledgeable with the drafting and administration of these trusts as well as offer trustee services.
Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts – As the name suggests an irrevocable life insurance trust (“ILIT”) is a special type of trust that owns one or more life insurance policies. An ILIT provides structured benefits and distributions for trust beneficiaries but with the added benefit of excluding the insurance death benefit from an individual’s taxable estate.
Tax Assistance and Preparation – Our attorneys regularly provide advanced tax planning and advice involving various matters including those involving qualified retirement accounts, gift and estate tax, generation skipping transfer tax, capital gain and cost basis, and fiduciary income tax.
Charitable Planning and Foundations – Charitable gifts during life, charitable trusts, and private family foundations are some of the legal services our law firm provides for our philanthropic clients.
Special Needs Planning
Our estate planning attorneys can assist clients with the planning and protection of their children, siblings, or other loved ones with special needs. This includes special needs trusts (third-party and self-settled trusts), guardianship and conservatorship, and ABLE accounts.
Asset Protection Planning
Asset protection is inherent in much of the estate planning we already provide our clients, however, sometimes a more deliberate analysis and plan is needed to protect our clients assets. Our attorneys can provide expert advice on how to protect assets from unknown future creditors including identifying and explaining exempt assets and nonexempt assets, the benefits of using a Michigan domestic asset protection trust (“DAPT”), and other planning techniques that comply with the law.