1)   Have you written a Will or named a guardian for your children?
2)   How will your assets pass to your family?
3)   Do you have current powers of attorney covering both health and financial issues?
4)   Do you have a durable power of attorney?
5)   Should you make gifts during your lifetime?  Do you want to give anything to charity?
6)   Have you considered how you will transfer your business ownership and to whom?
7)   Do you anticipate any significant changes in your total income in the future (special bonus/inheritance)?
8)   Do you feel your current planning will allow you to achieve your goals?
9)   How do you want to be remembered?

 Estates & Trusts Practice 

Angelo & Angelo, LLC advises clients throughout their life as they accumulate assets, experience life changes such as birth or adoption, marriage, planning for retirement and prepare for an orderly disposition of their estate.  By a personal approach to client satisfaction we forge close working relationships, learn what matters to them and then design our advice appropriately.   We pledge to address our clients concerns in a concise and unambiguous manner.  

Our practice encompasses general estate planning, estates and trusts administration, estates and trusts litigation, personal income tax planning, estate tax return preparation, transfer tax planning, charitable giving, business succession planning, adoption concerns and guardianship. 

General Estate Planning  
Many of the traditional vehicles of estate planning are encompassed in this category and include:

  Wills
  Trusts
  Living Wills (Advanced Healthcare Directives)
  Powers of Attorney (Financial and Healthcare)
  Charitable Gift Planning
  Estate & Gift Tax Returns
  Living Trusts
  Pour-over Will to Trust Agreement
  Credit Shelter Trust
  Irrevocable Trusts
  Revocable Trusts
  Insurance Trusts
  Special Needs Trusts
  Spendthrift Trusts
  Residuary Trusts

Estates and Trusts Administration
Our firm will handle handles all phases of estate settlement in Pennsylvania, including:

  Probate of Wills
  Asset Distribution
  Appointment of Executor/Executrix
  Accounting for Executors/Trustees
  Inventory of estate assets
  Sale of real estate and other assets 
  Asset distribution including retirement plans
  After death tax-planning, including elections that can be made by a spouse at such time
  Accounting for accounts of executors and trustees
  Estate tax returns preparation, encompassing IRS audits and tax litigation in the U.S. Tax Court

Estates and Trusts Litigation
Our firm handles many complex litigation matters that require extensive experience, such as:

  Will contests
  Trustee Removal
  Will Interpretation
  Undue influence disputes
  Interpretation disputes concerning wills and trusts
  Estates and trusts administration disputes 
  Reformations of trusts for tax and obsolescence reasons
  Guardianship of mentally ill
  Medical treatment of mentally ill
  Disputes concerning guardianship of mentally ill and mentally retarded persons and their property along with any medical treatment decisions encountered

Personal Income Tax Planning
Angelo & Angelo, LLC advises clients with respect to various employee benefits such as qualified retirement plans, IRA withdrawals, deferred compensation plans and stock options. 

Estate Tax Return Preparation
Our firm takes pride in the fact we can fully service our clients with respect to all aspects of tax matters including the preparation of their tax returns as well as tax planning advise.  Our attorneys are equipped to prepare individual, partnership and corporate returns so that our clients may have some continuity and one-stop-shopping without having to decipher the Internal Revenue Code and eliminating the need for more costly accounting services. 

Transfer Tax Planning
In 2001 President George W. Bush signed in a myriad of tax law changes including a phasing out of the federal estate tax up to the year 2010 where the exclusion becomes unlimited.  However, there remains significant uncertainty in the year following 2010. Married individuals should keep in mind that though the marital exclusion will eliminate the federal estate tax to one spouse, the second spouse to pass will be subject to it.  If you are a client who is subject to the federal estate tax or may become one, there are many vehicles available to reduce or even eliminate the tax including: 

Gifting of assets over the grantors life via irrevocable trusts such as:
  Irrevocable Insurance Trusts
  "Crummy" Power Trusts
  "Section 529" Qualified state tuition programs
  Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts ["GRATs"]
  Qualified Personal Residence Trusts ["QPRTs"]
  Intentionally Defective Grantor Income Tax Trusts ["IDGITs"]
  Lifetime Qualified Terminable Interest Property Trusts ["QTIPs"]

Devices that will reduce asset value for estate purposes, including:
  Split Dollar Life Insurance
  Development of LLC's, limited partnerships and closely-held corporations, which will achieve maximum valuation discounts
  Revising interests in real property to fractional tenancy-in-common interests reducing the value to the interest holder

Our firm has experience in preparing estate and gift tax returns to correctly report transactions involving any of the above devices.

Charitable Giving
For clients who have charitable aims, we offer a variety of vehicles to take maximum advantage of the tax deductibility of those gifts.  We will work to achieve goals from setting up scholarship designations to a clients alma matter to Charitable foundations.  Some of the following trusts help achieve these goals:
 
  Charitable Remainder Trusts [CRT]
  Charitable Lead Trusts [CLT]
  Private Foundations

Business Succession Planning
If you own a business, succession planning may be an option that you want to look into.  By planning for the transfer of your closely-held business to family members you will have the opportunity to plan for the following generations with respect areas such as management and tax implications.  Some important options to consider are:

  Equalization of ownership for family members that choose not to work in the business
  Mechanisms to initiate the reduction of imminent estate taxes with respect to the business

Adoption Concerns and Guardianship

Angelo & Angelo, LLC will walk our clients through a lifelong dream of adoption.  We will navigate you through the necessary legal filings to bring that new addition to your family with the smoothest possible transition.

Additionally, our firm takes looks into our clients future, much like a chess champion plots his strategy many moves ahead, while planning for your estate.  We will make insightful proposals to avoid potential difficulties that could arise in the future with respect to personal concerns of family members.  Each family will have different needs with unique situations.  Some approaches however will be unforeseen.  In these cases we can suggest the following options:

  Acquiring the necessary court permission to plan for the estate of an incapacitated person
  Acquiring a guardianship over a person by court authority
  Acquiring a commitment order from the court to protect a family member from themselves or others .