Advice on Succession

Plan­ning Ahead, Not Just Reacting

Don’t wait until your bank casts doubt on your company’s financ­ing! With­out a cor­po­rate suc­ces­sion plan, you could be con­front­ed with this sit­u­a­tion. With our ser­vices and the sup­port of our coop­er­a­tion part­ners, we can help you find the right solution.

  •  Inher­i­tances and Gifts

Inher­i­tance and gift tax law espe­cial­ly holds many pit­falls for the layper­son and is con­tin­u­al­ly under­go­ing leg­isla­tive changes. We inves­ti­gate your alter­na­tives and pre­vent finan­cial losses.

  • Tax design con­sult­ing with regard to pend­ing trans­fers of pri­vate or cor­po­rate assets tak­ing into account the legal and tax environment
  • Com­pre­hen­sive approach to com­pa­ny own­er­ship suc­ces­sion and prop­er­ty succession
  • Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of alter­na­tives: gift or inheritance
  • Advance cal­cu­la­tion of tax consequences
  • Prepa­ra­tion of tax returns

  • Advice on com­pa­ny own­er­ship succession
  • Exe­cu­tion of wills
  • Advice on and sup­port for estab­lish­ing foundations
  • Advice on future care such as liv­ing wills, durable pow­ers of attor­ney for health­care, etc.*
  • Wills and taxes*

* In coop­er­a­tion with our net­work of lawyers and notaries, when necessary.

  • Imple­men­ta­tion of your per­son­al objectives
  • Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of con­se­quences from an inher­i­tance, gift, income, and land trans­fer tax perspective
  • Avoid­ance of poten­tial addi­tion­al taxes
  • Avoid­ance of poten­tial disputes

  •  Non-prof­it GmbH (Ger­man pri­vate lim­it­ed company)/Foundation

We have the req­ui­site exper­tise that comes from man­ag­ing sev­er­al non-prof­it enti­ties (e.g., foun­da­tions, asso­ci­a­tions, non-prof­it GmbHs) to serve non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions all the way from for­ma­tion to dai­ly foun­da­tion man­age­ment. We can sup­port you in estab­lish­ing a foun­da­tion dur­ing your life­time as well as serve as execu­tor to form your foun­da­tion after your pass­ing. We main­tain good, close con­tacts with super­vi­so­ry and tax author­i­ties, which is impor­tant both for get­ting approval to set up a foun­da­tion as well as the ongo­ing busi­ness of run­ning a foundation.

Our ser­vices include annu­al finan­cial state­ment prepa­ra­tion for your foun­da­tion in accor­dance with the legal require­ments. If your foundation’s finan­cial state­ments need to be audit­ed, we can audit them instead of prepar­ing them, and pro­vide addi­tion­al ser­vices, if nec­es­sary, such as audit­ing the use of funds accord­ing to the arti­cles of asso­ci­a­tion, cap­i­tal preser­va­tion, and pro­pri­ety of man­age­ment. We work with you to devel­op cap­i­tal preser­va­tion plans and, it goes with­out say­ing, can help you with ongo­ing tax con­sult­ing for your foundation.

  • Prepa­ra­tion of finan­cial state­ments in accor­dance with the legal requirements
  • Foun­da­tion audits
  • Prepa­ra­tion of use-of-funds statements
  • Foun­da­tion accounting
  • Ongo­ing tax consulting

  • Set-up of foun­da­tions in the con­text of inher­i­tances and gifts
  • Cor­po­rate succession
  • Man­age­ment of foun­da­tions not hav­ing legal capac­i­ty (nicht rechts­fähige Stiftung) (trustee)

  • Long-term expe­ri­ence with foun­da­tion management
  • Good con­tacts with super­vi­so­ry authorities
  • Help with com­plex issues

  •  Exe­cu­tion of Wills

Tax advi­sors are con­sid­ered “nat­ur­al” execu­tors. After pro­vid­ing advice for many years, tax advi­sors know their clients’ fam­i­ly sit­u­a­tions like no one else. Often, tax advi­sors begin assist­ing their clients dur­ing their child­hood through their par­ents’ tax returns, then con­tin­ue on through mar­riage, com­pa­ny for­ma­tion, and the birth of chil­dren. They are there even through divorce and death, pro­vid­ing life­long ser­vice with detailed knowl­edge of their clients’ lives. No exter­nal con­sul­tant could be bet­ter informed. As per­sons of trust, we are also in the posi­tion to assist you in the event of ill­ness by keep­ing your per­son­al or busi­ness activ­i­ties run­ning through durable med­ical or finan­cial pow­ers of attor­ney to pro­tect your assets.

  • Imple­men­ta­tion of the testator’s wish­es by act­ing as executor
  • Per­ma­nent execu­tor­ship in the event of minor heirs
  • Draft­ing of wills con­sid­er­ing the nec­es­sary tax issues
  • For­ma­tion of foun­da­tions mor­tis causa
  • Han­dling of care and cus­tody issues in the event of illness
  • Assump­tion of pow­ers of attor­ney in the event of illness
  • Sup­port for the order­ly trans­fer of a company
  • Set­tle­ment and trans­fer of estates
  • Han­dling of tax respon­si­bil­i­ties in the event of the testator´s death
  • Set­tle­ment of exist­ing contracts

  • Estate sales
  • Han­dling of funer­al in the course of exe­cut­ing the will

  • Effec­tive exe­cu­tion of the will due to excel­lent knowl­edge of details
  • One-stop shop­ping for estate services
  • Opti­mal advice due to pri­or knowledge
  • Order­ly trans­fer of assets
  • Guar­an­teed capac­i­ty to act at all times
  • Safe­guard­ing of the estate