Elk Grove Estate Tax Planning Lawyers

Helping You Optimize Your Tax Situation

You work your entire life to save and have enough money to comfortably retire – and ideally, leave something for your loved ones when you pass away.

During your life, you pay all kinds of taxes: income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and so on. And at the end, the government still wants to tax you on the assets you have left at your death.

This is known as the estate tax – sometimes called the “inheritance tax” or “death tax.” The best way to protect your assets and your family’s future from excessive taxation is to hire an attorney who has experience in estate tax planning. We can help you reduce – if not entirely avoid – the federal estate tax burden. At Cava and Faulkner, our team of legal professionals can help you create an estate plan that will minimize your tax liability and help ensure that your loved ones are taken care of after you’re gone.

How Does the Estate Tax Work?

Estate tax is totally separate from federal tax, property tax, sales tax, and every other type of tax you’ve paid during your lifetime.

Estate tax is a tax paid on the net value of all your assets owned at your death.

However, there are fairly sizable exemptions to the estate tax so it is primarily a high net-worth individual or family who is affected.

This said, the estate tax rate is a whopping 40% on your net estate, so if you do have an estate tax problem, we are talking about potentially massive sums of money your estate will owe to the government before a single heir would enjoy a single penny.

Is The Estate Tax Really My Problem?

President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 nearly doubled the allowable exemptions to the estate tax that existed prior to 2017. This ensured that even fewer families would be affected.

The estate tax exemption for individuals increased from $5.4 million to $11.2 million, and the estate tax exemption for married couples increased from $10.9 million to $22.4 million.

Unless your estate is valued at more than $11.2 million, you do not have to worry about the estate tax at this time. But for those who are affected, there are numerous estate planning strategies available that can greatly reduce the amount owed. We can advise you on the best options for your family.

What are Advanced Estate Tax Planning Strategies?

Families with high-value estates face several complex legal and tax issues – estate tax is only one of them.

We offer a number of advanced estate planning strategies that are aimed primarily at reducing a family’s tax burden. In addition to minimizing or eliminating the estate tax liability, we also help you leverage the advantages of estate and gift taxes and generation-skipping trusts to pass assets on for successive generations without the risk of a tax liability decimating your estate at each generation. Some of our most popular advanced estate planning tools and strategies include:

• Life insurance trusts
• Qualified personal residence trusts
• Grantor retained annuity trusts
• Asset protection trusts
• Land trusts
• Gift tax planning
• Bypass trusts
• Dynasty trusts
• Charitable planning
• Family limited partnerships or limited liability companies
• Asset gifting

Utilizing these strategies can help clients optimize and reduce liability when it comes to estate taxes. It is important to note that every situation is different. As your estate planning law firm, we are focused on creating estate plans that can not only optimize your tax situation now but after you pass away.

Call Our Elk Grove Estate Tax Planning Lawyers Today!

You have worked hard to build your family’s wealth and legacy, so it makes sense to put similar effort into protecting those assets after you are gone.

This includes protecting your assets against excessive taxes.

At your Family Wealth Planning Session, we can go into detail about how you can minimize the potential tax burden faced by your family so that you can maximize the inheritance you pass on to your loved ones. We pour over every detail, no matter how complex your estate is, to ensure quality results. We strongly value the attorney-client relationship. By hiring an estate planning lawyer in California from our law firm, you are setting yourself up for success. We can also help your family through the trust administration process in the future. Give us a call at 916-685-1225 to learn more about how we can help.