Gifts, trusts, and inheritances can affect your taxes, your income, and the people who receive your assets.
Decisions about gifts, trusts, and inheritances can affect your taxes, your access to income, and the people who will eventually receive your assets. We help families consider those consequences and prepare the related tax returns.
Working with your estate-planning attorney and other advisors, we assess how business interests, real estate, retirement accounts, and other assets fit into your plans. We also help trustees and beneficiaries understand their tax reporting responsibilities as assets and income pass between generations.
We are CPAs, not your estate-planning attorney. We do not draft wills or trusts. We work alongside the attorney who does, so that the tax view is part of the plan.
A gift above the yearly amount set by the IRS generally must be reported on a gift tax return, even when no tax is due. We prepare the return and keep the records that make later reporting easier.
Trusts and estates file their own income tax returns. We prepare them and explain what is reported to beneficiaries.
We estimate how different structures would affect taxes and cash, so that you and your attorney decide with the numbers in front of you.
Read more →Family businesses and property raise questions about control, value, and tax when ownership passes. We help you think them through early.
Accounts left to heirs are taxed differently from other assets. We explain the effect on your plan and on your beneficiaries.
Read more →If you are named trustee or you receive an inheritance, we explain the reporting responsibilities and what to expect.
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You tell us what you are facing or planning. We listen, ask questions, and tell you whether we are the right fit.
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If we work together, we agree on what we will do, who is responsible for what, and the fee, before the work begins.
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We gather the facts, explain your options in plain terms, and act while your choices are still open.
Call or text an office, or the concierge. It answers any time and can book the introductory meeting.
No. We work with your estate-planning attorney. We prepare the tax returns and estimate the tax effect of the options.
Not always. Gifts above a yearly amount set by the IRS generally must be reported, even when no tax is due. Ask us before you give, so the reporting is planned.
Keep the statements and the value on the date of death, and ask us how the account is taxed before you withdraw anything.
Fees depend on what we agree to do. We agree on the scope, responsibilities, and fee before the work begins.
Palm Desert and Irvine.