Welcome to the Estate Planning, Trusts, and Estate Administration Practice Group of Scolaro Fetter Grizanti & McGough, P.C.

Since our firm’s inception more than 45 years ago, we have focused our practice largely on assisting our clients:

● as they accumulate assets and grow their estates

● as they develop and grow their businesses or professional practices

● as they plan for the eventual disposition of their estates

● as they plan for retirement

● as they work to preserve their estates in light of the ever-changing rules governing the imposition of income taxes as well as gift, estate, and generation-skipping taxes

● as they seek to protect their assets from the potential claims of creditors

● as their estates are passed on to later generations or other beneficiaries

Wealth planning and preservation comprises the accumulation, conservation, and eventual transfer of one’s wealth through the design and implementation of a comprehensive estate plan. Our overall purpose is to work with our clients and their other financial advisors to develop a plan that maintains the client’s financial security and that of their families while at the same time facilitating the management of their assets during their lifetime and the orderly and efficient transfer of their estates at death.

Many members of the firm’s Estate Planning, Trusts and Estate Administration Practice Group overlap their practices with our Business and Tax Practice Group, Agricultural Services Practice Group, and our Employee Benefits Group. Estate Planning, Trusts and Estate Administration members are often involved in structuring new businesses, creating and implementing business succession plans, and designing and establishing employee benefit plans.

Charitable giving is often an important component of our clients’ estate plans. Members of the Estate Planning, Trusts and Estate Administration Practice Group have developed expertise in all types of charitable giving, including the creation of charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, private foundations, and the use of donor-advised funds through local community foundations.

Estate Planning

The Estate Planning, Trusts and Estate Administration Group works closely with the firm’s clients (individuals as well as businesses) throughout the Syracuse, Rome, Utica, Watertown, and Rochester, NY areas, to design and implement estate plans that achieve the client’s goals of asset distribution among beneficiaries in a tax effective manner.

In addition to working directly with the firm’s clients, the Estate Planning, Trusts and Estate Administration Practice Group typically works in conjunction with the client’s other financial and planning professionals in order to maintain a coordinated approach throughout the estate planning process.

Probate And Administrative Services

Our Estate Planning, Trusts and Estate Administration Practice Group provides a complete range of probate and administrative services, including representation of estates in Surrogate’s Court, guidance for trustees and executors in connection with their administration of trusts and estates, and post-mortem estate planning.

We assist families in all aspects of estate administration, including the commencement of appropriate court proceedings to effect the probate of a decedent’s will, working with executors in marshaling estate assets and in the disposition of those assets, the preparation and filing of all required estate and inheritance tax returns as well as fiduciary income tax returns, and the finalization of the estate’s administration in Surrogate’s Court. We also offer advice and counsel with respect to post-mortem estate planning options designed to reduce estate and income taxes. In addition to the preparation and filing of state and federal estate tax returns, the Estate Planning, Trusts and Estate Administration Practice Group represents executors and trustees before the Internal Revenue Service and in the United States Tax Court.

To aid the executor or trustee, the Estate Planning, Trusts and Estate Administration Practice Group employs the latest in accounting and tax compliance technology. This technology allows us to undertake the preparation of trust accountings in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

The Estate Planning, Trusts and Estate Administration Practice Group also administers various types of trusts. These include life insurance trusts, living trusts, charitable trusts, private foundations, and trusts created under wills. This service includes assisting the client in funding these trusts, coordinating ongoing contributions to the trust, maintenance of trust bank accounts, and undertaking all required communications between trustees and trust beneficiaries. We also provide services with respect to the preparation of gift tax returns required in connection with the implementation of our clients’ estate plans.

The attorneys in the Estate Planning, Trusts and Estate Administration Practice Group are licensed to practice in New York State, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Working with correspondent law firms in other states, we frequently accommodate clients with estate and trust matters outside of New York State.