Tax & Estate Planning

The two fundamental questions that arise when a client or potential client is considering engaging a lawyer or law firm are (a) does the lawyer or law firm have the capability to achieve the client's objectives, and (b) can the lawyer or law firm achieve such client objectives in a cost-effective manner?  Here are five reasons why the answers to these two questions are affirmative.

1. Experience. The three senior members of the Fabian Tax and Estate Planning Group, Bill Adams, Jay Bell and David Lyon, have a combined 100 years of experience in tax and estate planning. The younger members of the group have been mentored by these senior members and have developed significant expertise in their own right. Fabian lawyers have worked on transactions ranging from small transactions involving business start-ups to sophisticated transactions and planning involving billions of dollars. The range and depth of tax planning experience of the Fabian lawyers matches or exceeds that of any other firm in the Intermountain West.

2. Professional Philosophy. Once we have been engaged by a client then that client's problems, issues and concerns become our problems, issues and concerns. The lawyer-client relationship becomes a partnership as Fabian becomes a continuing resource in growing a business and addressing the tax concerns of the business and its owners.

3. Innovation and Creativity. The Fabian Tax and Estate Planning Group prizes innovation and creativity in its work. We think "outside the box" and anticipate future consequences of actions. To understand what we do for our clients has to be experienced. A client never misses the consequences of an innovative solution to his legal and tax matters of which the client is never advised.

4. Integration of Strategies.  A hallmark of the Fabian Tax and Estate Planning Group is that we combine various disciplines and approaches into integrated planning strategies involving federal and state income tax planning, estate planning, asset protection planning and other business planning objectives.

5. Efficiency. We believe we are ruthlessly efficient in providing legal services. We have been involved with, and have experience in, virtually every type of tax planning activity or transaction. We know how to do tax research and find answers quickly. We have the capacity to draft all necessary documents to implement planning we recommend. We believe that an "investment" with Fabian will yield a highly acceptable rate of return.

The foregoing introduction is simply words in an electronic format. The only way a person will know whether these descriptions are accurate is to experience what the lawyers in the Fabian Tax and Estate Planning Group can do. We would welcome the opportunity to try to earn a potential client's trust and confidence.

Specific Practice Areas of Fabian Tax and Estate Planning Group

The areas of practice of the Fabian Tax and Estate Planning Group can be summarized as follows. We would be happy to provide specific examples of work which we have done upon request and to provide any potential client to speak with existing clients about the nature and quality of the Fabian Tax and Estate Planning Group practice.

• Buying and selling of businesses including mergers and business combinations
• Joint venture planning
• Business start-ups, entity formation and business restructurings (often in the context of estate and wealth transmission planning) and buy-sell and insurance planning to provide for contingencies in the life of a business enterprise
• Corporate and partnership tax planning involving all dimensions of tax planning with respect to corporate and partnership business activities
• Planning utilizing captive insurance companies (Fabian lawyers have organized a number of captive insurance companies where there are significant tax benefits insuring worker's compensation and other risks that the clients were self-insuring)
• Compensation planning and benefit planning including retirement planning, planning involving 401(k) plans, profit-sharing and pension plans and deferred compensation planning
• Agricultural tax planning including formation and use of agricultural cooperatives
• Exempt Organizations and charitable planning
• Foreign and International Tax Planning
• Planning for the acquisition, development, investment in and sale of real property
• Estate planning including planning to minimize estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxes and planning efficiently to transmit wealth and control of businesses from older generations to the succeeding generations
• State tax planning involving state income, sales, use and property taxes
• Asset protection planning to minimize exposure to potential creditors in a litigous society

Practice Group Chair:  David J. Lyon