Tax, Estate Planning & Pension
Carlsmith Ball’s Tax, Estate Planning and Pension Practice Group has a broad range of tax law expertise at the federal, state, local and international levels. Our attorneys advise clients on trusts, estate planning and pensions, ensuring their assets are managed efficiently and minimizing potential legal disputes when the time comes for generational wealth transfers.
Our pension law attorneys work with government agencies, nonprofit organizations, private businesses and public traded companies to establish benefits programs and manage executive compensation. We also provide legal services for entrepreneurs, growing family businesses, individuals who wish to make planned giving arrangements, philanthropic organizations and private foundations.
Our tax services for businesses and individuals include:
- Business structuring
- Choice of entity
- Business workouts and separations
- Real estate acquisitions, development and dispositions
- Conveyance tax planning
- Hawaii general excise and use taxes
- Tax incentives for high-technology businesses
- Tax-deferred exchanges
- International tax planning
- Tax audits, appeals and litigation
Our estate planning legal services include:
- Wills and trusts
- Business succession
- Advance health care directives
- Generation skipping tax
- Probate and trust administration
- Family limited partnerships
- Conservatorships and guardianships
- Asset protection
- Charitable giving
- Trust litigation
- Public charities and private foundations
Our pension, employee benefit and executive compensation legal practice, one of the largest in Hawaii, provides the following services:
- Tax qualified retirement plans — profit sharing, pension, 401(k), cash balance, cross-tested, age-weighted, Davis-Bacon plans
- Benefit plans for governmental and tax-exempt entities — 403(b) and 457(b) plans
- ESOP transactions
- DOL and IRS audits and correction programs
- Plan terminations
- Plan assets and investments
- Fiduciary responsibilities and prohibited transactions
- Qualified domestic relations orders
- Health and welfare benefit plans — medical, disability, long-term care, educational, dependent care, fringe benefit, cafeteria plans
- Post-retirement medical plans
- Taft-Hartley plans
- Employee benefits in mergers and acquisitions
- Stock options, phantom stock, restricted stock
- Incentive bonus and retention plans
- Non-qualified deferred compensation plans
- Rabbi trusts and other funding vehicles
