Practice Areas
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Family Wealth Solutions
Lehman, Lee & Xu's Family Wealth professionals assist high net worth individuals, which vary from titans of industry, professional athletes, media stars, singers, performers, artists, real estate developers, entrepreneurs as well as their families and fiduciaries with sophisticated business and personal succession planning and post-death administration of estates and trusts. We organized this practice group because the majority of new dynamic businesses are created as family businesses in China and the Chinese have a long tradition of family run businesses both in China and world-wide through Chinese Diaspora.
We work with our Chinese clients to design and implement plans for business succession and changes in management and ownership of family businesses and closely held corporations or wealth created through the financial markets in China and abroad. The long-term health of any business requires thoughtful attention to the needs of the business and, at the same time, to the needs of a family. For the business, planning must address the management transition and the near- and long-term liquidity requirements. The family's needs involve planning for equitable treatment of family members, implementing any charitable goals and satisfying lifetime personal liquidity needs and, ultimately, tax burdens with passing on ownership either through a trust or probate proceedings.
We have extensive experience in all phases of estate succession planning to protect individual and family wealth from third parties and excess Chinese and various international taxation issues(depending upon the situs of the family/business assets). Our professional services include, legal and accounting audits, estate audits, creating offshore tax and trust vehicles for asset protection and tax avoidance, preparation of wills, preparation of trusts, asset protection analysis and planning, and/or the formation of family limited partnerships, limited liability companies, corporations, foundations and other entities relating to the ownership and transfer of family wealth (both in China and abroad).
Our attorneys prepare revocable and irrevocable living trusts, including charitable split-interest trusts, life insurance trusts, trusts for minors and other sophisticated tax-saving trusts, wills, premarital and post marital property agreements and durable powers of attorney for both property management and health care. We also advise on strategies to avoid time-consuming and costly probate procedures.
We represent executors, trustees and beneficiaries in the administration of estates, as well as trusts once they have become irrevocable. This work includes the marshalling of assets, the proper funding of the trusts established for tax, protection and other reasons to be sure the purposes for their creation are achieved, and the preparation of tax returns. In addition, in those cases where disputes arise, we act for parties in litigation over wills, trusts and related documents and relationships, including disputes with the taxing authorities.
We assist clients in organizing non-profit entities to qualify for and preserve tax- exempt status. We also counsel clients in planning family gifts, philanthropic donations and other charitable considerations.
Our practice is based on tax expertise. We have been named as the best Tax & Trusts law firm in China by Asian Legal Business Magazine for the past four years. The Family Wealth Group's professionals (both lawyers and certified public accountants) keep up with the continually changing tax laws and their implications for clients. We are experts in gift and estate taxes, generation-skipping transfer taxes and fiduciary income taxes.
Our Family Wealth professionals are actively involved as the only China members in organizations that support privately held businesses, such as Attorneys for Family-Held Enterprises and The Family Firm Institute.
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