Steven Dawson’s practice involves sophisticated trust and estate planning for closely held business owners, business executives, and other high net worth individuals and families. Matters range from wealth transfer planning, estate and gift tax matters, planned charitable giving, and trust modifications, to pre-marital planning, and post-death administration of trusts and estates.

Representative Matters Include:

• Design and prepare basic estate planning documents including wills, revocable trusts, and financial and health care powers of attorney
• Design and implement sophisticated wealth transfer techniques, including gifts to irrevocable family trusts, installment sales to grantor trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), and qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs)
• Work with executors, trustees, and beneficiaries regarding the funding, administration, taxation, and distribution of estates and trusts
• Assist business owners and their families with succession plans to transfer ownership and management of closely held businesses in a tax-efficient manner
• Help families shift business interests, real estate, and other appreciating assets to trusts for their descendants in a tax-efficient manner
• Structure family limited partnerships and limited liability companies
• Assist clients with planned charitable giving, including the creation of charitable trusts and the formation and qualification of private foundations
• Prepare and review premarital agreements
• Obtain private letter rulings from the IRS on estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax matters
• Assist trustees with judicial and non-judicial modifications of irrevocable trusts using nonjudicial settlement agreements, virtual representation agreements, trust decanting, trust mergers, and trust divisions
• Prepare, review, and file Form 709 federal gift tax returns and Form 706 federal estate tax returns