We provide a comprehensive suite of estate planning and tax mitigation services tailored to your unique needs. We approach law, tax, finance, and philanthropy topics like a game of chess, where each move requires strategic foresight, anticipating and navigating lawsuits, high-risk decisions, unnecessary taxes, and legal obstacles to ensure the best possible outcomes for you and your family.
About Estate Planning & Tax Strategies:
Do I Need A Will, Trust, Foundation, Or A Combination Of These Entities?
The answer to this question is the answer an attorney would give you: It Depends!
Each entity has a specific purpose and works in a specific way, and this can change based on the events happening in your life, changes in your financial situation, and or clarity in goals and dreams, which could evolve over time.
Our suggestion is to approach estate planning and tax strategies like a game of chess: it's part strategic, it's part tactical, and it involves the evaluation of multiple alternative moves from the other side (creditors, lawyers, government agencies, change in the tax laws, etc.)
The first step in the "Art of Estate & Tax Planning", because it is very much an art and a science, generally starts with a comprehensive evaluation and assessment of your present assets, liabilities, tax obligations, family dynamics, and long-term goals.
Once that has been established, it is a lot easier to figure out what types of legal entities you need to use in order to protect your assets, lower personal risk, lower the size of your estate, reduce multiple layers of taxes, and pass-on your wealth in a highly efficient and economical manner.
Video 1: An Overview of Estate & Tax Planning:
Watch this introductory video on how estate planning and tax strategies work and how they impact you and your family
Why estate planning is important?
Imagine losing 30-40% of your net worth due to poor planning!
We have researched thousands of cases and have published a plethora of blogs, videos, presentations, and articles that cover real court cases and lawsuits between the IRS and the estate of a deceased person - many of them involve the topic of wills and trusts and the determination of whether estate should be applied to assets being transferred.
The most common fact pattern is where a person creates a trust, conveys assets into the trust, assumes those assets are outside of the estate or probate process. However, after their death, the trust was found to be invalid or not in compliance with estate or tax regulations, and those assets are once again placed back into the estate, subject to estate taxes, probate costs, and inheritance taxes in some cases.
Unfortunately, tens of thousands of people go through these unexpected, expensive, and stressful situations every year, which can be prevented with robust planning. Learning the basics of estate and tax concepts can help you and your family prevent these mistakes - this is your wealth, it's your responsibility to ensure you are taking the right steps to protect your wealth in the manner the law allows!
Wills, trusts, and foundations have the capability to change the trajectory of your family's legacy - but you need to learn how to harness them in the right manner, and that's exactly what we help our clients accomplish by offering ongoing support and consulting.
Video 2: An Overview Of Advanced Estate & Tax Planning:
This video dives deeper into the estate planning options that you can leverage and how the tax rules and regulations impact your wealth
Estate planning And Tax Law Integration
Do I Need To Get New Documents From Scratch Or Can I Modify Existing Ones?
You know the answer - it depends.
Do your legal documents accurately capture your goals and wishes? If so, they you do not need new documents.
Do your legal documents need a slight modification or alternation to reflect new updates or changes that has occurred since you created them? We can certainly help you evaluate if a change can be done and what those changes would look like.
Do your legal documents seem to be robust but you are interested in a second opinion to ensure there are no surprises later down the line? We can certainly provide a thorough evaluation and help you figure out if there's something that needs to be changed or modified. We provide honest and transparent advice and do not try to sell you something that you do not need!
As a matter of fact, we advice many people to recalibrate their focus and invest their money in other things rather than estate planning structures - we have prevented roughly 400 people in 2023 and 2024 from investing in expensive and shady "abusive trust programs" that promise to wipe out their taxes by 90% or more.
Saying "NO" is just as important as saying "YES".
Cost vs Benefit
What Is The Cost of Setting Up These Entities?
One last time: The answer is - It Depends!
There are two parts to estate and tax planning:
1. The setup.
2. The update.
Most people approach estate planning as a "one-time" task and assume that once a will or trust is setup, they are covered in all things "estate and tax planning". However, this is rarely the case.
Let us ask you a question:
Do you think your financial portfolio and your family dynamics could change over the next few years or over the next few decades?
The answer is usually a big fat: YES, Of course, it will most likely change!
Think of estate planning structures (wills, trusts, and foundations) as an "extension" of you - in a legal and tax "form".
Every time there's a change in your financial portfolio or in your family dynamics, your estate planning documents need to be updated, especially if you or your heirs want to avoid surprises later down the line.
The costs can vary drastically based on your goals, current and future legal exposure, and financial portfolio. Here are some general price ranges that you can expect to see in the marketplace:
Simple estate plan (will and revocable trust): $1,200 - $5,000
Irrevocable trusts and complex estate plans: $5,000 - $15,000+
Irrevocable trusts, foundations, and complex tax planning: $10,000 - $30,000+
We provide a complimentary Estate Assessment and Tax Calculation™ to help you evaluate which legal entities are really going to benefit you and your family members. Our mission is to help you understand estate and tax laws so you are empowered with the knowledge and tools to protect, preserve, grow, and transfer wealth seamlessly.
One final thought:
We suggest approaching the topic of estate planning and tax mitigation like an investment rather than an "expense". The failure to setup these entities properly not only leaves you and your family vulnerable and exposed, but can end up costing you and your family outrageous amounts of legal fees, court costs, and taxes.
In other words, don't approach estate planning with a "cheapest estate planning package on the internet" approach, because when it comes to legal and tax strategies - silly mistakes can have massive consequences.
Our Founder, Attorney Sid Peddinti lost everything due to this "pennywise, pound foolish" approach, an experience that wiped out his assets and inspired him to venture into the world of law and tax to help others avoid these mistakes.
Testimonials From Current Clients
Here's what a few clients had to say about working with us.
We are glad we met Sid, who helped us understand how estate planning really works. We were about to create an irrevocable trust and place all our assets in it - Sid stopped us from making an irrevocable and irreversible mistake which would have been terrible.
John S.
The consulting and mentorship program is what attracted me to Law & Tax. Almost all other law firms and wealth advisors only offered the setup, while Sid and his team offer ongoing help, mentorship, and strategy. This is too detailed to try and do it by ourselves.
Dustin N.
We were referred to Law and Tax by a friend who had used their services and recommended them to us. The strategies presented by Sid and his team were more thorough and backed up case studies and legal rulings - which gave us more confidence.
Adrian M
Sid and his team are trustworthy and honest - they have guided our family through this complex process with a lot of patience. Unlike other firms, they did not try and push me into a "program" and took the time to tailor our plan to fit our exact goals.
Jennifer F.
Law and Tax have been instrumental in helping me and my business partners plan our business sale and succession with confidence. They have helped us deploy our mini family office and streamlining our law, tax, and finance strategies with other experts.
Ryan H.
The manner in which Sid and his team navigate this complex area is truly fascinating. In the very first meeting with them, it was obvious they are not in this line of work for the money. I was looking for someone obsessed with these topics and found a firm that is.
Daniel B.
The Next Steps
Whether you need a simple estate plan to get the basic protection or a robust Mini Family Office™ setup with an entire team of advisors, we can help you find or create what you are looking for. Here is a snapshot of how we can add immense value to you and your family in an organized and methodical way:
Estate Evaluation and Tax Calculation™
Step 1 Connecting The Law, Tax, And Finance Dots
We'll calculate the fair market value of your estate, identify legal risk and exposure, walk through your short and long-term goals, and help you go through the pros and cons of using wills, trusts, and foundations.
We'll create a customized and personalized Framework that is tailored to solve your exact estate and tax problems. If the proposal makes sense, we move to step 2.
Estate and Tax Roadmap
Step 2 Creating A Roadmap To Success
Creating a comprehensive and actionable roadmap that contains the nuances of the following:
- Estate planning and pass-through entities: corporations, wills, trusts, and foundations
- Business succession strategy: Next steps to follow for a smooth transition
- Strategies to remove assets from your estate and lower personal liability
- Evaluation of several tax strategies to lower your current and future tax burden
- Creation of your wills, trust, and foundation's basic terms and clauses
- Creation of a short and long-term action plan that combines all the above strategies and lays out a phased approach to solving each one strategically, an approach that reduces the chances of mistakes or errors in the estate planning process
Estate & Tax Implementation Process
Step 3Implementation Of The Roadmap
If the Estate and Tax Roadmap™ presented makes sense (which contains the pricing structure, payment arrangements, and a detailed implementation plan), we will sign the required engagement terms and start working on the implementation of the Roadmap.
The details of the implementation will vary based on your goals and wishes - there is no one-size-fits-all format when it comes to estate planning. We will tailor the roadmap to suit your exact goals, which means that the terms of our engagement will be different in each case.
A Word Of Caution:
We do not offer a ONE SIZE FITS ALL estate planning documents and highly recommend you not purchasing one from other firms out there.
Fill-In-The-Blanks estate planning documents (advertised by firms who promote "do it yourself" or an estate planning software or AI system that guides you) generally fail to provide the legal protection you are seeking, and will cost you or your family members more time, money, taxes, and stress in the long-run.
Whether you choose to work with us or someone else, it's important to ensure you engage a firm that goes through the nuances of the terms and clauses - each and every word can make a difference in the final outcome. This goes back to the "pennywise, pound foolish" approach - one false move can end up costing you and your family tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, in the long-run.
We go beyond the law, partnering with our clients, and helping them navigate the complexities of estate and tax planning in a methodical and calculated manner.
Law & Tax Consulting: Mini Family Office™ Services
Step 4 Ongoing Consulting, Education, And Mentorship
Once we complete drafting your legal documents and have setup the different legal entities, we focus on helping you create a Mini Family Office™: an environment where your team of experts are all aligned and working in-sync with each other, rather than on their own without any consideration of other legal, tax, or finance strategies that are being executed for your family.
This consulting service includes:
- Creating alignment between your legal, tax, financial, and investment teams to ensure everyone is working on the same page and not counterbalancing the efforts of one another.
- Educating and empowering your "teams and advisors" on your family's wealth goals, so they are able to adjust and pivot their services to ensure it fits into your overall goals: Remember, they work for you - your goals need to drive the strategies being deployed, not the other way around.
- Ongoing strategic support to assist with buying, selling, controlling, investing, liquidating, or transferring assets through trusts & foundations.
- Ongoing mentorship, education, and support for family members, fiduciaries, and heirs involved in the process.
- Ongoing legal, tax, and tech integration and support to ensure all entities are in compliance and up-to-date.
WE ARE ON YOUR SIDE: OUR MISSION IS TO HELP YOU GAIN MORE CONTROL, CLARITY, AND PEACE OF MIND, KNOWING ALL YOUR ADVISORS AND REPRESENTATIVES ARE WORKING WITH YOUR BEST INTEREST IN MIND!