Tax or Retirement Plan Consulting

Expert Tax or Retirement Plan Consulting 

We are frequently consulted in by accountants, CPAs, and other estate planners to assist in the preparation of complex gift, estate, or GST filings or to determine the appropriate filing position for a unique gift, sale, or inheritance situation. We pride ourselves on the quality of the gift and estate tax returns we prepare for clients, the low audit rate of these returns, and our success in assisting clients in audit situations to get a swift and favorable result.

We are experienced and well-versed in California income taxation of out-of-state trusts and are frequently called upon to offer consulting services for clients with out-of-state trusts that have a California connection. We have counseled major banks and trust companies on these issues over the years and written and presented on the topic as well.

Our years of expertise in navigating the world of the laws regulating retirement plans, with their many tax issues, complexities, and nuances, have made us a frequent referral source for other attorneys, accountants, and investment advisors for their clients facing difficult issues with retirement plans, both pre-death and post-death.

We provide assistance in coordinating retirement plan designations with a client’s overall estate planning goals, including the use of aggregate theory agreements (when they make sense), and have obtained a number of successful IRS private letter rulings (or PLRs) for clients related to determining the proper ownership, designation, or income tax status of retirement assets. With the passage of the Secure Act and Secure Act 2.0, founding partner Steve Trytten is actively working on the American College of Trust and Estates Counsel (commonly known as “ACTEC”) responses to the federal government and is sought after to speak at conferences and other events on these updated rules and how they affect different aspects of retirement and estate planning.