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FALL, 2022

Westchester Office:  1133 Westchester Avenue Suite N208 White Plains, NY 10604 914.948.1556

Long Island Office: 135 Pinelawn Road Suite 245 South Melville, NY 11747 631.501.9800

TRUST DECANTING – UPDATING AN OUTDATED TRUST

Trust decanting, as its name would suggest, is an estate planning technique through which a trustee transfers assets from one trust to a second trust. In New York State, decanting is specifically authorized by statute (EPTL § 10-6.6).  While irrevocable trusts have a variety of uses in estate planning, they lack flexibility. Because irrevocable trust agreements generally cannot be amended, modified or revoked, unforeseen future events or a change in a client’s estate planning objectives may cause the terms of an existing irrevocable trust to become outdated. read more

THE EVOLUTION OF SELLING YOUR PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE TO PRIVATE EQUITY

Private equity has made significant advances into the professional practice arena. The structure of these transactions has evolved over the last several years and sellers must proceed with caution. First some background: a private equity firm raises funds from investors and seeks to purchase privately owned businesses. Historically private equity has shied away from investing in professional practices in New York State due to its strict regulations preventing non-professionals from owning professional practices and its strict fee-splitting laws. Private equity has now cracked the code on how to properly structure the purchase of a professional practice in NYS and private equity firms are investing heavily in this area. read more

Second in a series RECENT TRENDS IN INCENTIVE COMPENSATION EQUITY INCENTIVE PLANS

Even in these uncertain economic times, small businesses continue struggling to recruit, retain and incentivize highly talented and experienced employees. In the first installment of this series https://danzigermarkhoff.com/pdfs/Recent-Trends-In-Executive-Compensation.pdf, we discussed the characteristics of several common cash-based incentive compensation programs and the importance of aligning employee incentives with the key performance indicators that drive the success of your business.  Equity awards involve the employee-recipient becoming an actual equity owner of the employer. These awards raise all of the issues that arise from minority ownership of stock in a private company, including, shareholder rights, transfer restrictions, corporate governance and valuation issues, to name a few. The most common forms of equity awards are restricted stock, stock options, and partnership profits interests.  read more

PROS AND CONS OF JOINT OWNERSHIP AND TRANSFER ON DEATH DESIGNATIONS OF BANK AND BROKERAGE ACCOUNTS

The most common form of ownership for bank and brokerage accounts is joint tenants with rights of survivorship (“JTWROS”), whether between spouses or other family members. This means that, for a married couple, when one spouse dies, the asset passes to the other spouse automatically. The advantage is that the account avoids probate and the surviving spouse has immediate access to the money after the first spouse dies. Most banks and brokerage houses encourage the accounts to be registered as JTWROS or Transfer on Death (“TOD”) without knowing how your estate plan has been designed since they are focused on ensuring that the surviving owner can access the account at death of the first spouse.  read more

CASH BALANCE PLANS: THE SMART WAY TO INCREASE YOUR TAX-DEDUCTIBLE PLAN CONTRIBUTIONS

A “Cash Balance Plan” is an integral component of retirement plan design which allows you to make substantially larger tax-deductible contributions than those permitted under profit-sharing and similar defined contribution plans (DC Plans). Cash Balance Plans use easily understandable individual account balances not available under a traditional defined benefit pension plan. Each plan participant has his or her own account balance that is credited annually with a contribution and a specified rate of return. read more

In Our Firm: We want to share with you that our firm has recently received the following honors. We thank our clients and colleagues for their continued loyalty and for helping us achieve these honors. Best Law Firm: Danziger & Markhoff LLP has been included in the 2023 U.S. News - Best Lawyers® "Best Law Firms" list for the twelfth consecutive year. The firm received a Metropolitan Tier 1 ranking in the area of Trusts & Estates Law.  The Best Lawyers in America: Harris Markhoff, Michael Markhoff, Joshua S. Levine and Gary S. Sastow have been selected for inclusion in  The Best Lawyers® in America 2023 .  Harris was selected in the areas of Corporate Law and Trusts & Estates, Michael was selected in the area of Trusts & Estates. Both Josh and Gary were selected in the area of Health Care Law. New York Super Lawyers: Michael Markhoff and Jay Fenster have been selected for inclusion in 2022 New York Metro  Super Lawyers .   Michael was selected for Estate Planning and Probate and Jay was selected for Employee Benefits. Each year, only 5% of the attorneys practicing in New York received this honor. danzigermarkhoff.com Attorney Advertising

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