Estate Planning

When it comes to estate planning, Saul Ewing's Personal Wealth, Estates and Trusts attorneys are experienced in using the many techniques available to minimize tax liabilities and permit the transfer of wealth to the next generation in the most tax-efficient manner. We assist clients so they can make the best use of the alphabet soups of estates and trusts planning, including:

• Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT), where the grantor retains the right to an annual payment from a trust for a term of years.
• Grantor Retained Unitrust (GRUT), similar to the GRAT except that the retained annuity is expressed as a percentage of the trust property at the beginning of each year during the trust's term.
• Grantor Retained Income Trust (GRIT), prior to the Revenue Reconciliation Act of 1990 RRA ’90), GRITs were popular estate planning vehicles whereby a grantor would transfer property to an irrevocable trust and retain the right to receive the income of the trust for a period of years.
• Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT), a modified form of a GRIT To keep our clients' estate plans aligned with these changes, our PWET lawyers are constantly monitoring potential and actual changes in state and federal laws that will impact our clients' estate, retirement, and business succession plans.

To achieve clients' estate planning goals, our PWET attorneys also prepare:

• Wills and trusts
• Family limited partnerships (FLPs)
• Limited liability companies (LLP)
• Specialized real estate planning for clients with significant land ownership
• Charitable giving planning

It is not uncommon for circumstances to change, requiring a family to alter or revisit their estate plans. Recently, with interest growing in extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, families who own land atop the Marcellus Shale understandably have questions about their property's value and want to know the best way to structure their estate planning to maximize benefits. To learn more about estate planning techniques available to Marcellus Shale landowners, please click here.

To assist our clients in identifying and recording important information regarding their assets and liabilities, Robert H. Louis, a partner and co-chair of the Personal Wealth, Estates and Trusts Practice Group, has prepared this printable Estate Planning Questionnaire that can assist you and your lawyer in developing an estate planning strategy. You can view the questionnaire by clicking here.