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