Wealth Transfer Planning Lawyer in Boston
As an experienced attorney who handles trusts and estates, I can tell you that estate planning is much more complex when it involves transfers of significant wealth. If you have a sizable estate, passing on your assets without proper planning will often result in your heirs paying more taxes than they need to.
So how can you pass your wealth down to children and other heirs while avoiding unnecessary transfer taxes? The answer is simple: Work with a skilled wealth transfer planning lawyer.
Here’s a closer look at how the team at the Jillise McDonough Estate Planning Law Firm can make wealth transfer planning easier and more effective.
Overview of Wealth Transfer Planning in Boston
A skilled Boston wealth transfer planning attorney can implement multiple strategies to streamline your wealth transfer while reducing your tax burden. These can include:
Trusts
When you transfer assets into an irrevocable trust, those assets are removed from your estate. This lowers the value of your taxable estate (therefore reducing the estate taxes your heirs might owe).
This is a major advantage, but depending on the type of trust you choose, you may be able to further simplify the wealth transfer process. Additional types of trusts that may offer advantages for your estate include.
- Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILITs): Keep life insurance proceeds out of your taxable estate
- Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts (SLATs): Lock in part of your estate tax exemption while granting your spouse access to your assets
- Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts (IDGTs): Transfer appreciating assets without requiring heirs to pay capital gains taxes right away
- Grantor-Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs): Transfer appreciating assets while minimizing gift taxes (and providing an annuity to the grantor)
- Generation-Skipping/Dynasty Trusts: Pass assets to grandchildren to avoid estate taxes
- Special Needs Trusts: Pass assets to loved ones with disabilities without jeopardizing their eligibility for government benefits
Depending on the size and complexity of your estate, you may need multiple types of trusts to optimize the wealth transfer process. Our team works to get a holistic picture of your situation before suggesting potential solutions to your family.
Strategic Gifting
As of 2026, you can make gifts of up to $19,000 per person to multiple individuals without triggering gift and estate tax. This value is called the annual exclusion amount. Gifts up to this amount won’t count toward the lifetime gift and estate tax exemption.
If you’re married, you and your spouse may be able to give away even more without triggering the gift and estate taxes. “Gift-splitting” allows you (as a married couple) to give up to $38,000 per person per year. However, if you want to do this, you’ll need to file a gift tax return (IRS Form 709) regardless of the amount of your gift.
Many families use long-term gifting strategies to transfer wealth without tax. If you make multiple gifts up to the annual exclusion amount over the years, you may be able to reduce the value of your taxable estate, reducing or even eliminating estate tax.
This strategy is useful when you think your estate may incur taxes at the state and/or federal level. When calculating the taxable value of your estate, the government adds your estate’s current value to lifetime gifts that exceed the annual exclusion amount.
As of 2026, estates with values exceeding the following are subject to estate tax:
- Massachusetts Estate Tax: $2 million
- Federal Estate Tax: $15 million ($30 million for married couples)
In Massachusetts, the maximum estate tax rate is 16%. At the federal level, the maximum is 40%. If your estate is at risk of owing estate tax, a long-term gifting strategy could help you ensure more of your wealth stays within your family.
Family Limited Partnerships
Family limited partnerships are legal entities that streamline the transfer of business interests. They often reduce the income tax that comes with the transfer. When executed correctly, a family limited partnership allows you to transfer more wealth while incurring fewer gift and estate taxes. Here’s how they work:
- Multiple family members pool their assets
- Some family members (usually parents) become general partners with 1% control
- General partners gift other family members (usually children) 99% limited partnership interests
- Limited partners don’t control the business and can’t easily sell shares, so the value of those shares is significantly discounted for tax purposes
- Income from pooled assets is divided amongst family members, which means individual family members may end up in lower tax brackets
When creating family limited partnerships, family members often pool business interests, real estate, and investments. Setting up your family limited partnership can be complex, and seemingly minor errors may lead to major tax liabilities. To avoid potential problems, you should always consult with an attorney before creating one.
Key Estate and Tax Considerations
Wealth transfer planning in Massachusetts is complicated by the state’s $2 million estate tax threshold. At the federal level, the estate tax is only owed if the estate exceeds $15 million ($30 million for married couples). But in Massachusetts, you’ll incur estate taxes if your estate is worth more than $2 million.
A trust-based wealth transfer lawyer can help you create a plan to avoid as much of the state and federal estate tax as possible. That’s important because estate taxes can be startlingly high. The highest marginal estate tax rate in Massachusetts is 16%, and the highest marginal rate on the federal level is 40%.
Preparing the Next Generation and Heir Readiness
Many people who seek out Boston estate tax minimization attorneys intend to finalize their wealth transfer plans without including their children or other heirs. However, in many cases, we’ve found that involving your heirs in the process improves outcomes for everyone.
Inheriting wealth is a major responsibility. When heirs are involved in the transfer planning process, they gain a valuable financial education, one that can help your heirs to better understand the legacy you’re leaving.
Making wealth transfer planning an open and honest family pursuit may also lessen the likelihood of disputes over your will or estate in the future.
Advanced Wealth Transfer Strategies
Our wealth transfer planning lawyers can help you use advanced strategies like these to preserve and pass down your wealth:
Dynasty Trusts
If you want to pass wealth down through multiple generations, a dynasty trust may help you avoid or minimize both estate taxes and generation-skipping transfer taxes (GSTTs).
Grantor-Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs)
If you have a business or other asset where future appreciation is likely, a GRAT may be your best option for passing it down. GRATs allow you to transfer valuable assets with minimal tax consequences.
Family Limited Partnerships (FLPs)
A family limited partnership lets your family pool multiple assets and then grant partnership interests to various family members. Because you can’t market the assets contained in the FLP, their official valuations are lower than they would otherwise be. This means any taxes you may owe can be significantly reduced.
Charitable and Personal Gifting
Charitable donations to qualified organizations reduce the value of your taxable estate. Personal gifts up to the annual exclusion amount can do the same. Both strategies allow you to transfer assets to people and organizations you care about while reducing future estate taxes.
If you want to give larger amounts to charity while also generating an income stream for you or a beneficiary, you might want to consider a charitable remainder trust (CRT) or charitable lead trust (CLT).
With a charitable remainder trust, you transfer assets to the trust and receive an immediate (but partial) tax deduction. The assets in the trust generate an income stream for you or a chosen beneficiary for a set time period. After that period ends, assets in the trust are given to a charitable organization of your choice.
A charitable lead trust works the opposite way. Once you fund the trust, it pays an income stream to a charitable organization for a set period. After that time ends, the remaining trust assets are given to a designated beneficiary of your choice.
Business Succession and Private Equity Considerations
If your family business is part of your estate, our business succession and wealth transfer attorneys can help you develop a plan for succession. These are some of the tools we may use:
- Family limited partnerships (FLPs)
- Intentionally defective grantor trusts (IDGTs)
- Grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRATs)
For some of our clients, giving or selling the business during their lifetime ends up being the best approach.
Each business is unique. We’ll take a close look at your company and your family’s financial situation to help you maximize wealth transfers while minimizing taxes.
Work With Jillise McDonough Law Firm
Do you need a wealth transfer planning lawyer in Boston? Jillise McDonough Estate Planning Law Firm is dedicated to serving the needs of high-net-worth individuals and their families as they plan for the future. We primarily focus on trust and estate counsel, and we can assist you with the planning and execution of your wealth transfer.
Whether you need general family office legal counsel or want help crafting a comprehensive wealth transfer plan, we’re here to help you reach your financial goals. Get in touch with us today to see how our firm may be able to help you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Difference Between Estate Planning and Wealth Transfer Planning?
Estate planning primarily focuses on asset distribution after someone’s death. It’s also essential for every individual, regardless of the total value of their estate.
Wealth transfer planning deals with transferring wealth from one generation to the next with minimal taxes or legal burdens. Only high-net-worth families need wealth transfer planning services.
How Does Massachusetts Inheritance Law Affect Wealth Transfer Planning?
In Massachusetts, transferring family assets is often more complex than it is in other states. That’s because Massachusetts is one of the few states with a state-level estate tax. The state also has a low exemption. If the value of your gross estate is above $2 million, it will be subject to estate taxes.
What Tools Are Commonly Used in Wealth Transfer Planning?
Some of the tools that are most often used for wealth transfer planning include irrevocable trusts, family limited partnerships, gifting strategies, and revocable trusts. The strategies used can vary greatly based on your situation, so it’s a good idea to consult a wealth transfer strategies attorney.
How Does Gifting Play a Role in Wealth Transfer Planning?
For wealthy individuals and families whose estates exceed the federal or state-level exemption, it’s essential to reduce the size of the taxable estate to lower or eliminate estate taxes. Families often make lump-sum gifts up to the annual exclusion amount ($19,000 per person in 2026) to reduce the value of the estate. Gifts of this size don’t count toward the lifetime gift and estate tax exemption.
A gift tax planning lawyer can help you consider and implement this and other strategies for transferring wealth.
Can Wealth Transfer Planning Help Reduce Massachusetts Estate Taxes?
Generally, yes. By reducing the size of your taxable estate, you may be able to minimize estate taxes or avoid them altogether. With the help of a high-net-worth wealth transfer lawyer, Boston families can often transfer more of their wealth to the next generation.
How Does a Wealth Transfer Lawyer Work With Financial Advisors?
When wealth planning and estate planning intersect, it’s almost always a good idea to work with a wealth transfer lawyer and a financial advisor.
Financial advisors can offer investment advice and help you allocate and manage your assets. Wealth transfer lawyers can help you legally protect your assets and draw up the estate planning documents you need to pass on your financial legacy.
Can a Boston Wealth Transfer Lawyer Assist With Business Succession?
Yes. Family wealth planning and wealth transfer services aren’t just about passing down money and personal property. They’re often also about passing down business interests. Whether your loved ones intend to take leadership positions or you’re planning to sell your company to a private equity firm, an attorney who is experienced in private wealth law can assist with your business succession planning.
How Often Should Wealth Transfer Plans Be Reviewed?
Like estate planning, wealth planning isn’t something you just do once. Wealth transfer planning lawyers often develop sophisticated strategies based on your family’s unique circumstances. As tax laws change and your financial situation shifts, you’ll probably need to change your wealth strategies as well.
Broadly speaking, you should review your plan at least every three to five years. However, your estate counsel may suggest reviewing it more frequently, especially if there are significant changes in your assets.
What Happens if Wealth Transfer Planning Is Not Done?
If you do no wealth or transfer tax planning whatsoever, your loved ones could end up owing substantial estate taxes. The higher the taxes on your estate are, the less wealth will reach your family members.
How Does a Wealth Transfer Lawyer Handle Blended Families?
Wealth transfers in blended families sometimes lead to complex issues. A skilled wealth transfer planning lawyer can create customized estate plans that consider the needs of all family members while honoring your wishes. Proactive planning can reduce the risk of conflict.
