Tax, Trusts & Estates

Cole Schotz’s Tax, Trusts & Estates Department is among the largest specialized groups in the Metropolitan New Jersey/New York area. Unlike many firms where this practice is simply an accommodation to its clients, ours is one of our largest, most well-respected departments.

Stated simply, the attorneys of the Tax, Trusts & Estates Department counsel individuals and businesses in a wide range of tax, estate and succession planning strategies.

We represent many individuals of substantial means who are able to take advantage of sophisticated tax planning techniques to provide for their heirs. Many of our clients are also business owners with family-owned businesses where succession planning and asset protection are linked. In addition, we represent corporations concerned with a variety of tax and planning issues.

The experience of Cole Schotz attorneys goes far beyond estate planning. Our practice extends to broader areas of tax and corporate law. This tax experience enables us to better understand the tax, business and human ramifications of various planning approaches. Our corporate work both complements and brings insight to the business owner in his/her planning decisions. By better understanding succession issues, business operations and financial information, we can offer clients solutions to preserve assets both for their retirement and for their heirs, and to assure a guided future for their businesses. For our clients, we are not just their attorneys but their trusted business advisers.

We have also earned a particularly strong reputation for our work in estate and trust administration.

We have a great deal of experience working with agents of the federal and state tax authorities and regularly represent taxpayers before the United States Tax Court and the New Jersey Tax Court. We have earned credibility for our knowledge, preparedness and creativity thereby enhancing the firm’s reputation, which serves our clients very well.

For situations that require such expertise, we are supported by a large team of litigators who have experience in the specialized area of estate litigation.

Cole Schotz has a significant clientele of individuals who are also business owners with family owned businesses where succession planning and asset protection are linked. In addition, we represent many individuals of substantial means who are able to take advantage of sophisticated tax planning techniques to provide for their heirs. Furthermore, we represent corporations concerned with a variety of tax and planning issues.

We have substantial knowledge and experience representing the family of a special needs child.  This is a unique area which requires special expertise.  Cole Schotz attorneys have experience preparing trusts for assets owned by a special needs child and preparing trusts to be the recipient of assets to be dedicated, by gift or inheritance, to a disabled or incapacitated individual.  This planning is essential to ensure that the individual's ability to receive governmental benefits is protected.

Thirty years ago, the firm’s tax, trusts and estates department began with a single attorney. Today, the department is comprised of 15 attorneys, seven trusts and estate paralegals and a fiduciary accountant, all whom are actively involved in handling this area of law for clients of the firm.

Twelve of the 15 attorneys already have or are currently enrolled in obtaining graduate law degrees – masters of law in taxation, a significant academic achievement in this field. Nine of the attorneys have been awarded the highest rating (AV) for professionalism and quality of legal work and representation from Martindale-Hubbell, the premier directory of legal professionals.

Estate Planning for Individuals

• Preparation of Wills, Powers of Attorney, Living Wills and Health Care Proxies
• QTIP trusts
• Unified credit trusts
• Life insurance trusts
• Lifetime gift giving programs
• Generation Skip Tax Planning
• Family Partnerships and Family Limited Partnerships
• Qualified Personal Residence Trusts
• Defective “Grantor Trusts”
• “GRATs”
• Charitable Trusts - Remainder and Lead
• Limited Liability Companies
• Self Cancelling Installment Notes
• Recapitalizations
• Private annuities
• Splitting income among family members
• Establishing trusts for minor children
• Tax Planning in a divorce property settlement
• Preparation of special needs trusts

We succeeded in substantiating, in IRS proceedings, the transfer of approximately $6 million of assets out of a client’s taxable estate shortly before the client’s death with no transfer tax consequences. The taxpayer funded a limited partnership with $10 million of assets and then sold a 50% limited partnership interest to her children in exchange for a private annuity, transferred approximately 10% to a charitable lead trust and transferred small percentage interests to the taxpayer’s children and grandchildren. These strategies saved the family approximately $3 million in estate taxes.

• Sam Weiner named to American College of Trust and Estate Counsel
• Sam Weiner named among Top 100 Lawyers serving affluent individuals by WORTH magazine
• Michael Forman fields reader's question in Worth magazine column

• The Advisor
• Guiding Wealth Through the Generations, New Jersey Law Journal
• Funding a Trust With Retirement Assets, Cole Schotz Docket
• The Retirement Asset Swap, New Jersey Law Journal
• Funding a Trust with Retirement Assets, New Jersey Law Journal