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ESTATE PLANNING, PROBATE,
& WEALTH PRESERVATION

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The ScottHulse Law Firm's Estate Planning & Wealth Preservation practice group advises high and mid net worth individuals and families in estate planning, wills, probate, transfer taxation, asset protection, and closely held and family business matters, including charitable, deferred and leveraged giving.  Attorneys within this group also have extensive experience related to probate and trust administration, will contests, will construction suits, and other fiduciary litigation matters.

The Firm's location in El Paso, Texas, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, along the U.S./Mexico border, has enabled this practice group to develop substantial experience in advising high net worth individuals with assets on both sides of the border. These individuals often have special planning and tax issues because of the location and nature of their assets, and their status as non U.S. citizens, non-U.S. residents, or both. Our estate planning attorneys also assist high-net-worth individuals with the creation of complex multi-generational wealth transfer estate and wealth preservation plans that utilize multiple techniques. These include comprehensive, custom plans that go beyond the usual exemption equivalent (or credit shelter) or bypass trust and marital deduction trust planning that is the foundation for any estate plan. These plans also include, when appropriate, full utilization of an individual's exemptions from the generation-skipping transfer tax with a view towards creating true "dynasty trusts" that extend for multiple generations, if not into perpetuity.

Lifetime transfers are also an important part of multi-generational planning. ScottHulse lawyers have prepared specialized trusts and business entities to receive lifetime transfers designed either to avoid or reduce transfer taxation or to maximize available exemptions from such taxation. Examples of lifetime specialized trusts and business entities include:
  • Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts, also called ILITs;
  • Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts, or GRATs, and Grantor Retained Unitrusts, or GRUTs;
  • Charitable Remainder Trusts and Charitable Lead Trusts, also called CRUTs and CLATs;
  • Children's Trusts; and
  • Family Limited Partnerships (or FLPs) and Family Limited Liability Companies (or FLLCs)

When used in combination, these trusts and family business and investment entities can achieve a high degree of control and flexibility for the Firm's clients, provide significant asset valuation discounts for transfer taxation savings and leverage, and preserve the privacy of accumulated wealth as it is passed efficiently with appropriate restrictions and incentives from generation to generation.

Incapacity and Disability Planning
Planning for incapacity and disability is another important aspect of ScottHulse's Estate Planning & Wealth Preservation practice. The firm uses carefully designed special provisions for Living Trusts to minimize the need for legal proceedings in the face of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. Many times, an elderly person will not realize he or she needs help because of his or her deteriorating condition, and then resents a child's offer of help. The Living Trust provisions used by the Firm's attorneys require the client to address this real concern at the time the planning documents are drafted and ease the transition to successor trustees when help is needed.

Third-Party Special Needs Trusts can be very important for mid net worth married clients and parents of minor or adult children who are disabled or otherwise eligible for government benefits like Medicaid. ScottHulse believes that virtually every trust should have the potential for becoming a Special Needs Trust, or Supplemental Needs Trust, as necessary to avoid disqualification from receiving such benefits. Wills and trusts prepared by ScottHulse lawyers contain special language that allows the special or supplemental needs trust provisions to be "turned on" only when needed. For mid net worth married clients, this "toggle feature" can protect the surviving spouse's potential eligibility for government benefits and yet preserve up to one-half of the couple's lifetime savings that would otherwise be lost to nursing home and medical care expenses.

Probate and Estate and Trust Administration
Probate and estate and trust administration are other significant aspects of ScottHulse's Estate Planning & Wealth Preservation services. Our estate planning attorneys in this group advise individual and corporate fiduciaries regarding administration and taxation issues affecting trusts, estates and family owned businesses.

As part of the probate process, ScottHulse prepares United States Estate Tax Returns (Forms 706) and advises accountants for the Firm's clients regarding such returns. Some members of this practice group have handled the IRS audit or examination of numerous United States Estate Tax Returns and worked in opposition to IRS regional Estate Tax Attorneys to resolve valuation and other complex issues raised by IRS upon examination of Forms 706. Most of these examinations have resulted in only minor changes or no changes after completion of the examination process. ScottHulse attorneys have also prepared Form 706-NA for the estates of non U.S.-citizen, non U.S. resident decedents with substantial assets in the U.S., and have obtained both partial interim and final IRS Transfer Certificates for purposes of freeing assets of such clients from the IRS estate tax lien. The firm has extensive experience dealing with legal counsel from Mexico, the United Kingdom and other foreign countries in handling such matters.

Lawyers within the ScottHulse Estate Planning & Wealth Preservation practice group believe that executors and trustees need to provide clients and heirs and distributees of decedent's estates and trusts with clear communication and documentation concerning the closing and distribution of the assets of an estate or trust upon conclusion of the administration. David Hassler, a senior attorney, shareholder and the head of this practice group, has written and presented ground-breaking articles for the Estate Planning and Probate Advanced Drafting Courses offered by the State Bar of Texas regarding the preparation of clear and concise, yet comprehensive, estate and trust administration closing memos. These included examples of forms used for simple estates and trusts all the way through complex situations involving creative reorganizations of a decedent's business during the administration process to provide limited liability entities, creditor protection and tax efficiency for the heirs coming out of the administration process.

Glenn Davis, also a shareholder, is an estate planning attorney who offers a unique perspective and skill set to clients.  He was previously a litigator in the firm's employment and commercial litigation sections for 11 years, and is well qualified to represent clients in any litigation or threats of litigation that might arise.


REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS
  • Drafted multi-generational estate planning documents for a great-grandmother with a net worth of $7 million and her daughter, the grandmother, with a net worth of $40 million. The plan maximized both generations' exemptions from the estate tax and the generation-skipping transfer tax to establish dynasty trusts for the family. The great grandmother's plan also took into consideration that a portion of her estate would go to Mexican citizens and residents where there is no estate tax, thus preserving exemptions for the U.S. side of the family.
  • Designed estate plan for $100-million-plus net worth Mexican citizens and residents with U.S. property and children who are U.S. citizens. The plan establishes a dynasty trust exempt from estate taxes for the whole of the estate and a contingent provision applying traditional estate tax planning techniques in the event one or both clients decide to become a U.S. resident at some point in the future.
  • Established a rolling 2 year Grantor Retained Annuity Trust for $70 million net worth clients to transfer significant values of U.S. stock to children with no gift tax consequences.
  • Restated 17-year-old, irrevocable life insurance trust holding $7 million life insurance policy, preserving the generation-skipping transfer exemptions applied to the trust by utilizing regulations applicable to grandfathered GST trusts.
  • Established irrevocable trust to hold $1 million gift to ensure special needs treatment and prevent disqualification from government benefits for the beneficiary who is dependent on benefits for healthcare.
  • Regularly prepare living trusts and related documents for clients to maximize estate tax and generation skipping transfer tax exemptions and to provide creditor protection for children of clients. Living trusts also typically include special needs provisions for the surviving spouse and children that "turn on" only when needed. Clients for this type of planning typically range in net worth from $1.5 million to $10 million.
  • Regularly prepare living trusts designed to provide asset management in the event of incapacity and creditor protection for surviving spouses, especially in the context of long-term care issues. These trusts make extensive use of special needs provisions that "turn on" only when needed. Clients for this type of planning typically range in net worth from $250,000 and up.


RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

David P. Hassler

"Drafting Comprehensive Estate and Trust Closure and Distribution Memos" - Southern New Mexico Estate Planning Institute, Las Cruces, New Mexico, October 2004

"Circular 230 Regulations" - Southern New Mexico Estate Planning Institute, Las Cruces, New Mexico, November 2005

Estate Planning for Mexican Nationals with U.S. Assets - Southern New Mexico Estate Planning Institute, Las Cruces, New Mexico, November 2005

"Estate Planning for Mexican Nationals with U.S. Assets" - Southern New Mexico Estate Planning Institute, Las Cruces, New Mexico, 2006; Attorneys in Tax and Probate, Houston, Texas February 2007; and Lonestar Network of Law Firms - El Paso, Texas, March 2007

"Professionalism for Estate Planners" - Southern New Mexico Estate Planning Institute, Las Cruces, New Mexico, November 2007.

R. Glenn Davis

Scheduled Author and Speaker: 16th Annual Southern New Mexico Estate Planning Institute. Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico - "Planning with Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts", November 6, 2008;

Scheduled Author and Speaker: 2008 Advanced Drafting: Estate Planning & Probate. State Bar of Texas - "Closing Memoranda: Documenting the Distribution of the Estate", October 31, 2008;/p>

Author and Speaker: 2008 NMSU Estate Planning Conference for Women - Legal and Practical Aspects of Estate Planning, January 23, 2008;

Author and Speaker: 15th Annual Estate Planning Institute. Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico - Advanced Planning Techniques with Incapacity in Mind,November 1-2, 2007;

Author and Speaker: 2007 UTEP Estate Planning Conference for Women - Legal and Practical Aspects of Estate Planning, January 24, 2007.

Co-Author: Estate Planning for Mexican Nationals with U. S. Assets, January 2007.

KEY CONTACTS

David P. Hassler
  Estate Planning Attorney

Richard H. Feuille
  Estate Planning Attorney

R. Glenn Davis
  Estate Planning Attorney

Sarah Ainsworth Snook
  Estate Planning Attorney


2010 Forecast
& Planning Guide
 
Uncertainty regarding the estate tax and a possible window of opportunity to reduce tax exposure require a commitment to reviewing your estate plans and asset protection posture.  For a better understanding of current tax law and issues regarding possible changes in these laws, download a complimentary copy of our
2010 FORECAST & PLANNING GUIDE



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