ESTATE PLANNING & FAMILY WEALTH PRESERVATION
Revocable Living Trusts, Wills, and Powers of Attorney
We assist clients establish or update their estate plan including the implementation of revocable living trusts, last wills & testaments, powers of attorney for financial affairs, and advanced health care directives and living wills to ease the burden of end of life planning. Because every client is unique, we focus on understand your family history, significant assets, particular joys and or concerns about family members, your charitable inclinations and other important information to create a bespoke plan suited to meet your family's needs. Furthermore, we take special efforts to maximize any possible tax benefits, while providing maximal protection of your descendant's inheritance from their creditors or future divorcing spouses.
Finally, along with efficiently delivering important legal documents, we take particular pride in education so you have a full and complete understanding of your plan.
Family Wealth Preservation
As one of our nation’s most influential contemporary poets and philosophers, Christopher Wallace—better known by his stage name, the Notorious B.I.G., and affectionately called “Biggie Smalls”—famously declared: “mo’ money, mo’ problems.” While this adage may not universally apply to every financial circumstance, as knowledgeable estate and tax planners, we deeply understand the complex challenges involved in managing, preserving, and transferring significant wealth. This expertise enables us to seamlessly integrate traditional estate planning strategies with our extensive experience serving high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients. By doing so, we elevate estate planning to a higher level by carefully addressing:
Ways to effectively use life insurance to provide estate liquidity while also reducing eventual estate tax liability on the proceeds by establishing:
Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILIT)
Utilizing gift and estate tax exemption gifting strategies to freeze the value of an estate and provide asset protection, with planning strategies such as:
Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts (SLAT);
Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRAT);
Qualified Personal Residence Trusts (QPRT);
Sales to Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts (IDGT)
Family Limited Partnership/Limited Liability Company (FLP/FLLC)
Generation Skipping Gift Trusts (GST Trusts, aka "Dynasty Trusts")
Implementation of income tax efficient charitable gifting strategies, such as:
Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRT)
Grantor Charitable Lead Annuity Trust (CLAT)
Establishment of a Private Foundation
Establishing a Donor Advised Funds (“DAF”)
The protection of Second Amendment rights through implementation of:
NFA Title II Firearms Trusts (“Gun Trusts”)
Regardless of the strategy or strategies employed, we collaborate closely with individuals, families, and their trusted advisors throughout the planning process. Our goal is to foster engagement with younger generations, educating them and instilling the sense of responsibility necessary to preserve and enhance the legacy you have worked hard to build.
Estate Planning Solutions for Special Circumstances
Every family has unique circumstances, which often requires specialized, bespoke solutions. To that end, we provide:
Counseling to parents and family members of individuals with specials needs where a special/supplemental needs trust is appropriate to ensure proper care and ongoing access to public benefits;
Specialized planning to guarantee strict control of estate assets with respect to descendants and/or family beneficiaries with ongoing mental health or substance abuse issues.
Advice to clients regarding tax efficient ways to dispose of assets with substantial built in gain due to ownership of assets with little or no basis.
The rendition of advice to clients regarding:
The utility of, and, if necessary, the negotiation and preparation of prenuptial in contemplation of marriage, or a postnuptial agreement or property transmutation agreement where suitable for financial/estate planning purposes;
The consequences of and legal interplay between community property states (such as Arizona or California) and traditional marital property state, and the consequences regarding property ownership rights in the context of a death or divorce.
Representative Clients
Founders and C-Level executives of Fortune 500 and Russell 2000 companies;
Professional Athletes;
Owners of successful private companies;
Entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists, and Private Equity Investors;
Real Estate Developers and Investors;
Professionals including physicians, attorneys, accountants, executives, etc.;
Philanthropically inclined individuals.
Contact us.
Email: information@ganserlaw.com
Office: (480) 930-5859
Fax: (480) 542-9617
8787 E. Pinnacle Peak Road, Suite 220
Scottsdale, Arizona 85255