Phil
Tortorich

• Consults with clients regarding tax-efficient structuring of corporate entities, including C corporations, S corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships, and hybrid-type entities.  Focus is paid to the integration of a client’s estate and trust planning into the overall corporate enterprise. Often this consultation involves both domestic and international entities and the determination of the appropriate taxation of these entities for income, estate, and gift tax purposes.

• Designs trusts that shift the future growth of a client’s net worth out of the client’s estate while minimizing the exposure to gift taxation. Depending on the purpose of the trust and the type of assets to be held by the trust, both onshore and offshore trust planning is considered. Mr. Tortorich works with numerous domestic and foreign banks and trust companies in the implementation of client planning.

• Structures personal family investment companies for clients and integrates the investment companies with the client’s estate and trust planning. Depending on the client’s goals and specific circumstances, family investment companies can be structured domestically or through foreign jurisdictions. The family investment companies may be holding companies for active trade companies or purely passive investment vehicles.

• Serves as a legal liaison for a client. Mr. Tortorich’s team often coordinates all of the legal services provided to the client by attorneys of different disciplines and other financial and corporate consultants. This provides the client with one-point access to the various expertise that the client needs to employ in order to achieve (i) optimal non-tax goals and (ii) tax-efficient results for the client’s personal and corporate entities. This allows a client’s enterprise to be fully integrated by addressing all of a client’s needs, including income tax planning, estate and gift tax planning, creditor protection, regulatory compliance and local and state governance.

• Advises clients regarding their philanthropic goals, including the establishment of private foundations and public charities and the use of charitable remainder trusts and charitable lead trusts.

• Clients seek Phil’s advice on captive insurance programs at all stages—from initial conceptualization and potential application to implementation, compliance review and restructuring. He works closely with clients to implement appropriate risk management structures that maximize both their income tax and wealth transfer benefits.

He has written articles on such topics as: Funding Revocable Trusts with Real Estate, Maximum Gifting Under the 2001 Tax Act, Joint Revocable Trusts, Trustee Liability Issues and various other estate and gift tax issues which have been published in periodicals including Trusts and Estates. Additionally, Mr. Tortorich has spoken before the Chicago Bar Association on topics regarding the allocation of GST exemption on estate tax returns and the implications of the Hackl decision.