Firm Philosophy
Planning Foundation 

"Minimize Taxes!" This is often the first concern or goal people consider when thinking of Family Wealth Planning (or the more commonly used, death connotating "Estate Planning"). Perhaps now, even you are reading this in the hope of finding a list of Transfer Tax Saving Strategies for your own wealth planning purposes. In fact, if you search the Internet for the terms "Family Wealth Planning" or "Estate Planning", you will find an abundance of professional advice focusing primarily on the intricacies of estate and gift tax computations, followed by tax saving strategies and structures, from the Basic to the more Sophisticated . No one denies that this aspect is a cornerstone of (and typically the catalyst to) the wealth planning process.

OUR FIRM IS DIFFERENT. Our philosophy extends far beyond tax strategies. We believe that true Family Wealth Planning addresses questions of ultimate intimacy - profound questions directed to the wealth owner regarding self, family, and community. Thus, we focus on people: their desires, their motivations, their strengths and weaknesses, their relationships with each other, as well as their relationships with money. Although many of these questions are not new to most, professionally they frequently are touched upon only briefly and casually in an integrated wealth planning context, if at all. Sometimes the wealth owner is so busy creating wealth, he or she fails to stop and ask "Why? Why am I creating wealth? For whom and for what purpose?" Sometimes there are deep-seeded, intra-family conflicts or individual personal issues that people think are best left hidden and unaddressed. Sometimes the wealth owner subconsciously feels that contemplating and planning for his or her own demise will only serve to hasten it. The planning process then stalls before even beginning. Whatever the initial hesitations, however, clients who have participated in these intimate discussions have found them ultimately to be insightful, healthy for their family, and richly rewarding for all concerned.