Estate Planning Attorney
Roslyn, Nassau County, Long Island, New York

An estate planning attorney helps leave your assets upon your death to your desired heirs. An estate planning attorney’s goal is to minimize estate taxes and expenses maximizing the inheritance.

An estate planning attorney begins the process by taking an inventory of your assets and how they are titled. Assets held as joint tenants or tenants by the entirety pass by operation of law regardless of how your will or trust disposes of them. Insurance policies and retirement accounts with designated beneficiaries will pass to those beneficiaries regardless of how your will or trust disposes of them. Assets that pass by operation of law can be a good thing for small nontaxable estates since it eliminates some of the delays and expenses of probate. If your assets exceed the thresholds for taxable estates, then assets passing by operation of law defeat the ability of your estate instruments to minimize estate tax. Part of an estate planning attorney’s job is to explain this to you. Where necessary, the estate planning attorney should retitle assets such as real estate broker’s accounts so that your documents can control their disposition and the estate taxes on them.

The estate planning attorney should also make sure that your assets are sufficiently liquid to earn a return on them if placed in a trust. Your residence, while a cherished asset will not normally earn your surviving spouse, income if placed in a trust. The estate planning attorney may use trusts where your estate exceeds estate tax thresholds in order to make maximum use of the allowable unified credits. An estate planning attorney also may set up and use trusts where you need to incorporate life insurance into your estate plan, fund your estate taxes or to provide liquidity.

The estate planning attorney may set up a revocable living trust for people who seek to avoid probate. An estate planning attorney knows that such a revocable trust will only avoid probate to the extent the assets are transferred into it. The estate planning attorney will often split assets; one part as a marital distribution and the second part as credit shelter trust. The marital deduction qualifies for the marital deduction, while the credit shelter trust will be shielded from tax by the unified credit. The estate planning attorney knows that there will be no estate taxes upon the first death and estate taxes on the second death only to the extent the surviving spouse’s estate exceeds the allowable unified credit.  An important caution here is that while it may be desirable to build flexibility into a trust, such a trust in which the trustee has discretion on when and how to distribute income earned by it ; is a complex trust for income tax purposes. Such a trust is subject to the maximum income tax rate on income earned by it over approximately $11,000.00 of 35%.

He should also tell the client about other instruments he may want to execute. These include durable powers of attorney, health care proxies, and living wills.

The estate planning attorney helps to minimize taxes counsels and gets assets to the testator’s desired heirs.

David Kass, J.D. C.P.A.

Located in Roslyn, Nassau County, David N. Kass serves the Greater New York area, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Manhattan, the Bronx, and especially Long Island, Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

Please contact Kass & Kass to schedule a consultation. A brief introductory consultation is available for a nominal charge.