We provide estate planning services for business owners, executives, investors and their families. Estate planning objectives include:

Providing for the financial support of survivors

Minimizing succession and income taxes

Avoiding family disputes

Providing for succession to the ownership of the family business

Providing for investment management

Funding the education of children and grandchildren

Supporting charitable activities

Good estate planning is highly personal. Plans need to be devised to meet particular needs. Those needs will vary with marital status, relationships with children and grandchildren, special needs of family members, estate size and the types of assets comprising the estate.

Failing to plan can have unanticipated and undesired results. Assets may end up in the hands of persons not intended to receive them or be reduced unnecessarily by taxes - the use of basic estate planning techniques can save more than $160,000 in taxes for a $1,000,000 estate.

If you are a business owner, you have a particularly complex problem. You must make choices with regard to selling or liquidating the business or choosing and training successor management. In this decision making, you must deal with the varying needs, abilities and expectations of family members as well as planning to minimize taxes, expenses and avoid family friction. We at Carlile Patchen & Murphy can help you devise a plan to meet your wishes while minimizing taxes and administrative expenses and the risk of family conflicts.