The Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP private wealth lawyers provide a wide array of services in the areas of domestic and international tax, wealth preservation and wealth transfer strategies, business succession planning, and estate and trust administration and litigation. We advise individuals, families, closely held businesses, banks and trust companies acting as fiduciaries, as well as charitable organizations.

To advance a client’s wealth preservation and wealth transfer goals, we make recommendations and implement strategies based on a comprehensive review of the family’s assets, family needs, and the client’s personal desires. As part of this process, our lawyers provide advice on all aspects of federal and state gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer taxation and related income and international tax issues.

Wealthy Individuals/Families

The firm’s private wealth lawyers assist wealthy individuals and their families with their estate and tax planning through the use of both simple and sophisticated lifetime and post-death techniques. Many of our clients also own family businesses and seek our aid in minimizing the potential transfer tax burden associated with those assets, while providing for the smooth and efficient transfer of ownership and management to the next generation. Towards this end, we assist clients with the creation and restructuring of partnerships, corporations, limited liability companies, private foundations and other entities to achieve their planning objectives. Our lawyers are also experienced in addressing the special issues presented by clients owning assets in multiple states or in foreign countries.

Because every client’s needs are different, we create a wide range of estate plans tailored specifically for each of our clients. These plans can address numerous issues that affect a client’s financial future, including:

• Creating a variety of trusts to protect family assets and minimize tax impact, such as revocable living trusts, irrevocable gift trusts, charitable trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, spousal trusts, insurance trusts and generation-skipping trusts.
• Advising on various techniques to gift assets to individuals, charitable organizations or both, including the creation of a private foundation to achieve philanthropic and tax goals.
• Addressing business planning for the family, including the creation of entities and restructuring of entities in existence.
• Planning for potential or actual incapacity and disability of the client or heirs, including general powers of attorney, special needs trusts, medical care powers of attorney and directions to physicians.
• Integrating into the client’s overall plan the details of employer insurance, benefit and pension plans, and tax-deferred compensation.
• Structuring favorable retirement plan (e.g., 401(k), IRA, etc.) beneficiaries and distributions.

Whether an estate involves a simple will or a series of complex documents, our lawyers work with executors and trustees to make sure all the details are handled properly, including:

• Representation in all Probate Court proceedings.
• Valuation issues and working with appraisers on gift and estate tax matters.
• Preparation and filing of the federal estate tax return, any required State estate/inheritance for returns, Probate inventory and any other necessary filings.
• Trust interpretation
• Asset distribution
• Tax issues

Further, our lawyers have extensive experience in the areas of asset protection planning and international income and estate planning, as well as with marital agreements, both before and after marriage. We advise individuals and families on US tax residency and dual citizenship tax matters.

Closely Held Businesses

The firm has developed a distinctive practice in assisting individuals and families who have investments in closely held businesses. We help in all aspects of forming, structuring and restructuring closely held businesses as well as ongoing operational issues. Clients are often concerned about how to preserve these assets for the next generation in the face of potential estate tax burdens. The tax issues, however, are often secondary to the need to maintain strong management for the business and to provide continued opportunities for the employees and to treat fairly all of the client’s beneficiaries and to plan for ownership transition while considering the interests of all beneficiaries, including those not working in the family business.

Charitable Planning

Our private wealth clients often are interested in making substantial gifts to charity during their lifetimes or at death. As part of the planning process, our private wealth advisors have designed and implemented major gifts of stock, artwork, real property and other types of property. We have assisted clients with all types of deferred gifts, including charitable lead trusts and charitable remainder trusts, gift annuities, pooled income funds, non-trust remainder gifts and gifts of life insurance policies. We also have established tax-exempt foundations for our clients to further their specific charitable objectives while at the same time achieving income tax and estate tax savings.

Estate and Trust Administration and Controversy

We advise individual and financial institution executors and trustees in the administration of estates and trusts, including the fulfillment of all their fiduciary duties. When an executor or trustee needs assistance with a tax inquiry or dispute involving the IRS or a State taxing authority, we bring an arsenal of experience to the cause. We also have significant experience advising individual and financial institution executors and trustees, as well as beneficiaries in estate and trust litigation matters involving alleged breaches of fiduciary duties and will contests.

Justifying Your Confidence

A good estate plan helps individuals and families with some of their most complex challenges, including:

• Planning the preservation of hard-earned financial assets,
• Assuring the future care of loved ones, and
• Resolving the future direction of a family business.

At Hunton Andrews Kurth, we strive to help each client achieve his or her unique personal vision for the future.