For those business persons and individuals fortunate to have acquired significant wealth, a significant challenge emerges: structuring their financial affairs so that, optimally, all of their wealth can be passed down to their heirs - - rather than having the government take 50% or more of it through estate and inheritance taxes.

Kaufmann Feiner’s trust and estates department, chaired by David A. Cannon, has true depth of experience and is uniquely situated to assist you in protecting and preserving your hard earned assets and transferring them in accordance with your wishes. Working closely with you to ascertain your anticipations and desires, Kaufmann Feiner draws on its deep knowledge of all pertinent tax, trusts and estates property, securities, business organization, banking, and real estate laws to identify those techniques and structures which are legally available and best suited to preserving your estate to the maximum extent possible. Asset reallocation; personal bypass trusts; insurance trusts; carefully crafted wills; proper insurance planning; the establishment of trusts for children; the establishment of 401(k), Keogh and defined benefit retirement plans; the formation of charitable trusts - - some or all of these may prove vital to preserve your accumulated wealth and guard it to the maximum extent possible from taxation.

But Kaufmann Feiner’s ability to protect your assets does not stop with planning. It extends to serving as counsel to your executor and/or your trustee; if you wish, serving as your executor a trustee; furnishing counsel as needed to take advantage of the constantly changing and complex bodies of tax, trusts and estates property, real estate and securities laws; and, representing clients and their estates before surrogate courts, tax tribunals and any other forum which must be accessed to fulfill your estate plan and carry out your desires.

Choosing someone to make decisions about your healthcare in the event you cannot make those decisions for yourself equally important. Health proxies, living wills and durable powers of attorney are standard parts of a planning process. We also have extensive experience in charitable giving as yet another method of estate planning.

Kaufmann Feiner sincerely understands the extraordinarily sensitive nature of the decisions and activities you must engage in to preserve your wealth. Tact, compassion and gentleness are the hallmarks of our approach in this area. While not for a second forgetting that our job is to have the documents and structures we create speak strongly and emphatically on your behalf when you may no longer speak for yourself.

In addition, Kaufmann Feiner’s trusts and estates department works closely with small businesses to address succession planning issues and comprehensive estate planning for the principals of those businesses. Buy-sell agreements; insurance advice; appraisal protocols; comprehensive retirement planning - - all are the subjects of Kaufmann Feiner’s careful attention.

Keeping your estate planning fees modest is the first step of preserving your estate for your heirs. And as with all other practice areas at Kaufmann Feiner, our estate planning activities are geared to furnish comprehensive and optimal counsel for fees which are reasonable. As always, impeccable client service is the order of the day.

Come visit us to further discuss what Kaufmann Feiner’s trust and estate practitioners can do for you. We value the trust and confidence that our clients place in us. And we would be delighted to have the opportunity of identifying just how we can serve you.