Estate Planning

Estate Planning | Wills and Trusts

In this area of practice, we assist our clients with all elements of their estate planning, including:

+ Preparation of last wills and revocable trusts, to implement dispositive desires in a tax effective manner, and to implement appropriate and effective trust arrangements to protect beneficiaries, fiduciaries, and client desires, drawing on our many years of experience relating to the drafting, administration, and dispute resolution relating to these dispositive instruments
+ Determining the need for, and the preparation of, specialty trusts to achieve specific tax and dispositive goals
+ Review and implementation of probate avoidance arrangements
+ Review and planning for beneficiary designations
+ Use of joint accounts and payable on death accounts

Transfer Tax Planning

In this area of practice, we assist clients with planning to minimize wealth transfer taxes, including through the use of:

+ Marital trusts and bequests
+ Qualified domestic trusts for noncitizen spouses
+ Annual exclusion gifts and current use of unified credit gifts, including through the use of gift trusts
+ Planning to maximize basis step-up at death in assets
+ Grantor retained annuity trusts
+ Qualified personal residence trusts
+ Sales to defective trust transactions and other sale transactions
+ Use of grantor trusts
+ Generation skipping trusts and exemption planning
+ Use of entities, such as LLCs and family partnerships
+ Use of life insurance and life insurance trusts
+ Portability planning

Planning For Family Succession And Control

In this area of practice, we assist clients in planning for family succession of control of businesses and family assets, including through the use of:

+ Trusts and selection of trustees, protectors, and powers of appointment
+ Use of family partnerships and other entities
+ Buy-sell agreements
+ Business succession plans

Prenuptial And Postnuptial Agreements

In this area of practice, we assist persons entering into marriage, or already married couples, in entering into desired or necessary agreements, including:

+ Drafting to accomplish personal, business and tax objectives
+ Handling the negotiation and drafting process in a manner that resolve disputes in a manner that minimizes conflict and other difficult aspects of negotiating agreements between spouses and soon-to-be married persons
+ Planning to avoid future challenges to agreements upon divorce or separation

Disability Planning

In this area of practice, we assist clients in planning for the possibility of mental or physical incapacity or disability, including through the use of:

+ Durable powers of appointment, preneed guardianship declarations, and medical surrogates
+ Use of trusts to provide for support and transfer of control upon disability
+ Insurance alternatives

Wealth Protection And Pre-Liability Asset Protection

In this area of practice, we assist clients in reducing exposure of their assets to claims of creditors and others, including through the use of:

+ Gifts and trusts, in conjunction with other estate planning
+ Domestic and international asset protection trusts
+ Protected asset classes for asset protection (e.g., annuities, insurance, homestead, etc.)
+ Entities for asset protection (e.g, limited liability, charging order protection, etc.)
+ Probate avoidance

Jenna Rubin presents at ABA National Symposium

On May 12, 2023, Jenna Rubin presented at the 35th Annual Real Property Trust and Estate Law Section of the American Bar Association’s National CLE Conference in Washington DC. She took part in a panel discussion on “Black Tie Optional: The Eroding Formalities to Creating a Valid Will.”

24 Feb 2022

Article by Charles and Jenna Rubin featured on cover of Florida Bar Journal

An article written by Charles Rubin and Jenna Rubin is featured on the cover of this month’s Florida Bar Journal and can be found here.

27 Dec 2021

Jenna Rubin appointed to ACTEC Fiduciary Litigation Committee

Gutter Chaves is pleased to announce that Jenna G. Rubin has been appointed to the Fiduciary Litigation Committee of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) for the 2022-2023 year.

14 Dec 2021

FBAR Case Reversed – Nonwillful Filing Penalties Based on Number of Accounts Not Reported

Back in 2000, I wrote here about a case where a taxpayer did not report multiple foreign accounts on an FBAR. The question for the court was whether the $10,000 penalty for a nonwillful failure to file meant $10,000 per return not filed, or $10,000 per account not reported on the return. For . . .

22 Nov 2021

Of Spousal Gifts and the Substance Over Form Doctrine

U.S. spouses each have a unified credit that allows for substantial gifting to third parties without requiring the payment of gift tax. What happens if one spouse has assets to be gifted away, but that spouse does not have sufficient remaining unified credit exemption to cover the gift and wants to use the exemption of the other spouse?

At times, the spouses can agree to split the gift for gift tax purposes, which treats 1/2 the gift as coming from each spouse. This allows the unified credit of the spouse not making the gift to be used to avoid gift tax on the 1/2 that such spouse is treated as making. However, it can be an imperfect solution if the spouse with the assets does not have enough unified credit to offset his or her 1/2 of the gift.

Oftentimes, the parties may contemplate having the party with the assets transfer them by gift to the other spouse (a tax-free gift under the gift tax marital deduction), and then the receiving spouse makes a gift to the third party applying his or her own unified credit. The question in these circumstances is whether the IRS will respect the transaction and allow the receiving spouse’s unified credit to be applied to the gift to the third party, or whether it would seek to apply the “substance over form” doctrine to treat the gift as coming from the spouse who transferred the assets to the other spouse and does not have enough unified credit to fully cover the gift.

This is not a black and white issue. On one end of the spectrum. . .