James Betterman

Jim Betterman's Trust and Estate practice can best be summarized as follows:

-Preparation of estate planning instruments including wills, revocable trusts, durable powers of attorney for financial matters and durable powers of attorney for health care. Estate tax and income tax planning for use of the marital deduction and estate tax exemption.

-Sophisticated estate planning for high net worth individuals including structure and documentation of family limited partnerships, discount planning, gifting programs, generation-skipping tax planning, private annuities, installment sales, grantor retained annuity trusts, qualified personal residence trusts and grantor trusts.

-Succession planning for owners of closely-held businesses including structure and documentation for corporate reorganizations, recapitalizations, voting trusts, stock sales, asset sales, and non-qualified deferred compensation plans.

-Life insurance planning including preparation of irrevocable life insurance trusts and premium financing arrangements.

-Charitable planning, including structure and documentation of charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, supporting organizations and private foundations.

-Estate planning with retirement assets including planning for minimum required distributions, generation-skipping tax planning and conduit trusts, spousal rollovers, inherited IRAs, preparation of beneficiary designations and structuring charitable gifts.

-Trusts and Estates litigation.

-Preparation of estate tax returns and gift tax returns.

-Administration of trusts and estates.

-Resolution of tax controversies with the Internal Revenue Service.

-Presenter of estate planning seminars.