Patrick E. Lacy, P.C.

Estate Planning / Wealth Transfer / Asset Preservation

We counsel clients on all phases of estate planning issues involving income, gift, estate and generation-skipping tax issues for individuals, families and closely-held businesses. We assist clients in all phases of estate planning, from the preparation of wills, revocable living trusts, durable powers of attorney, medical powers of attorney and living wills to the creation of generation-skipping trusts, life insurance trusts, charitable remainder trusts and other sophisticated planning vehicles, including estate planning techniques to assist clients in transferring wealth during lifetime and at death.

We also represent fiduciaries and beneficiaries in the administration and distribution of trusts and estates. We represent  executors throughout the entire estate administration process, including the probate of wills, distribution of the estate, family settlement arrangements, the preparation of federal estate and state inheritance tax returns, and post-mortem planning.

• Estate Planning: Comprehensive, coordinated planning of one's assets, taking into consideration gift taxes, estate taxes, generation-skipping taxes, business income taxes, and personal income taxes, and the overall desires of a person in the ultimate disposition of their assets, either during lifetime or at death, as well as creditor protection and asset preservation in the overall desires.
• Wills: Document to manage and transfer a person's assets at death.
• Powers of Attorney, Medical Powers of Attorney, and Directives to Physician: Basic documents to manage a person's assets, business affairs, health, and well being during lifetime.
• Multi-Generation Planning: Coordinated estate planning of two or more generations, paying particular attention to reducing overall taxes to all family members and to insure that the proper family member is responsible for the management of the family assets or family business and that all family members benefit in the manner desired.
• Charitable Planning: The use of charitable gifting techniques to reduce income taxes, gift taxes, estate taxes, and generation-skipping taxes while benefiting a designated charitable organization.
• Charitable Foundations: The creation and operation of charitable organizations that promote religious, social, or educational objectives in a tax-advantageous manner, often in coordination with charitable planning.
• Gifting: The migration of wealth and benefits to children, grandchildren, and other individuals for educational and personal objectives while avoiding gift taxes, estate taxes, and other taxes.
• Wealth Migration: Sophisticated estate planning and tools to migrate wealth to future generations while benefiting the current generation in a creditor-protected and estate-tax protected environment.
• Life Insurance Planning: The use of life insurance in buy-sell planning in the business context, estate tax avoidance planning, and wealth building to provide for the needs of loved ones.
• Retirement Planning: The coordinated planning of retirement assets in conjunction with a sophisticated estate plan to meet the present needs of the current generation and to maximize the future benefits to be received by the junior generation.
• Living Trusts: A technique used in the conjunction with the overall estate plan that provides management of a person's assets during lifetime that can also help to avoid the need for a future guardianship and avoid the need for the probate of a person's estate.
• Irrevocable Trusts: Sophisticated tools to facilitate education planning for children and grandchildren, wealth migration, life insurance planning, and a host of other sophisticated estate planning objectives.
• Estate Tax Returns: The preparation of Federal and State tax returns required to be filed in conjunction with a decedent's estate.
• Gift Tax Returns: The preparation of Federal tax returns required in conjunction with gift planning.
• Asset / Creditor Protection: The arrangement or migration of a person's assets in a manner that takes advantage of state and federal exemptions that prevent or limit a creditor / ex-spouse from confiscating a person's assets.