Estate Planning
Every estate plan we design is customized to reflect each family’s specific circumstances and intentions.
Carlisle Barnett PC advises individuals and families on all aspects of designing and implementing personal estate plans. Our work includes the thoughtful use of revocable and irrevocable trusts, wills, powers of attorney, medical directives, family business and investment entities, property agreements, and tailored ownership structures. We do not rely on one-size-fits-all forms; instead, we customize each document to reflect the specific assets, risks, and objectives involved.
We know that estate planning is highly personal, so our practice is attuned to each client’s circumstances, family dynamics, and goals. We take time to listen, identify concerns, and then draft clear, practical provisions that address them. Our attorneys are patient advisors who educate clients about options and alternatives, so they can make informed decisions about every component of their plans.
In addition to addressing tax and asset-ownership considerations, we routinely design and recommend planning techniques focused on creditor protection, risk management, and the preservation of wealth across family generations. The language of each plan is carefully crafted so that trustees, personal representatives, and family members can understand and carry out the client’s intentions.
Our policy and practice emphasize thorough and accurate work from the beginning to the end of each project, with collaboration by all appropriate attorneys and staff. Our objective is to help each client put in place a fully effective, comprehensive, and integrated estate plan that is tailored to their unique needs.
Estate and Gift Tax Planning
Minimizing or eliminating gift, estate, and transfer taxes is often a driving concern for our clients.
The transactional tax planning and wealth preservation practice of Carlisle Barnett PC is closely associated with and integrated into all of the firm’s other practice areas. As a result, we often build transfer tax planning into a broader estate plan or long-term wealth preservation plan. In other situations, our work focuses on creating estate and gift tax-advantaged plans for a specific project or transaction. In all cases, each engagement is highly individualized and takes into account personal goals, family dynamics, risk tolerance, existing planning structures, and the client’s broader advisory team.
Our attorneys have extensive experience in federal and state gift, estate, inheritance, and generation-skipping transfer tax planning and compliance. We know that virtually all significant gifts, wealth transfers, and estate plans have inherent transfer tax consequences, and we are committed to proactive analysis and the recommendation of tax mitigation strategies and options. When income tax issues are central to a particular transaction, we typically work in collaboration with the client’s CPA or other income tax advisor.
Among the many legal techniques and strategies we routinely consider, recommend, and implement are:
- Irrevocable trusts, including spendthrift arrangements and lifetime gifting programs
- Generation-skipping transfer and “dynasty” trust planning
- Qualified personal residence trust (QPRT) plans and related split gift strategies
- Life insurance planning, including irrevocable life insurance trusts
- Family limited partnerships and family limited liability companies
- Intrafamily loans and other leveraged transfer techniques
- Installment sales to heirs or to irrevocable grantor trusts
- Charitable planning, including charitable remainder trusts, charitable gift annuities, donor advised funds, and private foundations
- Post-mortem and lifetime transfer tax strategies, including disclaimers and renunciations
We frequently work as part of a coordinated team with a client’s existing advisors to align gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax planning with long term wealth preservation goals, and in doing so, we are proud of the reputation we have established among other law firms, CPAs, banking and trust officers, insurance professionals, and financial advisors for designing practical and creative estate and gift tax planning solutions.
Business Law
Our business law practice coordinates business, estate, and succession planning for closely held and family-owned companies.
Carlisle Barnett PC advises owners of closely held and family-owned businesses on legal matters that intersect with their personal estate planning and long-term wealth preservation goals. Much of our work involves helping clients form and structure business entities, update governing documents, and plan for ownership transitions as part of a broader estate plan.
Our attorneys work with business owners to design and implement tailored operating agreements, shareholder agreements, and buy-sell arrangements that coordinate with trusts, gifting strategies, and other estate and gift tax planning techniques. We frequently assist with ownership transfers to family members or trusts, succession planning among generations, and the alignment of governance provisions with the client’s personal planning objectives.
We also regularly assist clients with the legal aspects of everyday business operations that relate to their broader planning, including entity maintenance, basic contracts, and real estate and leasing arrangements for family business entities. When more complex corporate, financing, or income tax issues arise, we also collaborate with the client’s CPA or other specialized counsel to ensure that the business and personal plans remain coordinated.
Estate Administration and Probate
We guide Personal Representatives through every step of the probate and estate administration process, including federal estate tax returns.
Carlisle Barnett PC represents Personal Representatives and Executors in the administration of estates and through both informal and formal probate proceedings. Our primary objective is to guide the administration efficiently, in compliance with all applicable laws, and in a manner that is sensitive to the needs of the family. Our involvement is flexible based on the wishes of the designated fiduciary, from behind-the-scenes advisory work to handling certain aspects directly.
Our attorneys and staff assist with the full range of estate administration tasks, including appointment of the Personal Representative, notices to beneficiaries and creditors, preparation of inventories and accountings, assessment of debts and expenses, and assistance with distribution of remaining property to beneficiaries. Throughout the process, we work to provide clear explanations and practical guidance so that fiduciaries understand their responsibilities and can document their decisions appropriately.
We also advise on post-mortem tax issues that arise in the context of estate administration, including preparation of federal estate tax returns (Form 706), as well as identifying and implementing post-mortem tax elections and planning opportunities that may reduce overall transfer tax exposure. We do not prepare estate or trust income tax returns, but we work closely with the estate’s CPA or other income tax advisor to support those filings and to help ensure that estate, tax, and distribution decisions remain coordinated.
Trust Administration
Our trust administration practice supports Trustees from lifetime management of a trust through post-death funding and distributions.
Carlisle Barnett PC advises individual and corporate Trustees in the administration of revocable and irrevocable trusts, both during the settlor’s lifetime and after death. Our goal is to help Trustees carry out their duties in a way that is consistent with the trust document, applicable law, and the expectations of the family and beneficiaries.
At the outset of an engagement, we typically review the trust instrument and related estate planning documents, identify key provisions, and outline a practical sequence of steps for the Trustee. We assist with acceptance of the trusteeship, required notices to beneficiaries, collection and titling of trust assets, and preparation or review of inventories and reports so that the Trustee has a clear picture of what is held in trust and how it is to be administered.
Following a death, many trusts require important decisions about how to divide and fund subtrusts. We regularly help Trustees and Personal Representatives evaluate whether any disclaimer planning is appropriate and, if so, how and when disclaimers should be completed. When a trust includes a bypass trust, credit shelter trust, marital trust, or other tax directed subtrust structure, we assist with the selection and allocation of assets among those trusts in a way that aligns with the governing formulas, the overall estate plan, and the family’s tax and cash flow objectives.
Trust administration often intersects with post-mortem transfer tax planning. In estates where a federal estate tax return (Form 706) is required or recommended, we coordinate trust funding decisions with the estate administration and the client’s CPA so that any formula bequests and tax elections are implemented correctly, and we prepare the estate tax return to reflect those decisions and ensure proper reporting.
Real Estate
Our real estate practice supports purchases, sales, and family ownership structures that align with our clients’ estate planning and long-term wealth preservation goals.
The real estate practice at Carlisle Barnett PC represents individuals, families, and closely held entities in real estate transactions as part of broader estate planning and wealth preservation goals, including assisting with and documenting the purchase and sale of residential and commercial real estate and transfers of properties to trusts, family members, and entities. Our practice also frequently includes the structuring and documentation of secured loans between one generation to the next, as well as transactions outside the family, including preparation and review of purchase and sale contracts.
We have significant experience in forming and structuring limited liability companies and other entities to provide liability protection, support joint ownership among family members, and coordinate decision making. These entities are often integrated with trusts and other planning techniques so that management and eventual transfers of real estate are consistent with the client’s estate plan and tax objectives.
Carlisle Barnett PC frequently works in coordination with our clients’ CPAs, financial advisors, and real estate professionals to align real estate transactions with overall planning, cash flow, and tax considerations. Our objective is to ensure that real estate decisions are documented clearly, carried out efficiently, and tailored to each client’s long-term goals for the property and the family.
