For professional advisors
A second opinion, without a fee.
Accountants, financial advisors, trust officers, business brokers, and attorneys are welcome to call with questions on trust structure, situs, entity selection, or tax treatment, including on instruments this firm did not draft.
General questions of this kind are not billed. Client relationships are not solicited.
Why advisors call
A resource first. That is the whole intent.
The intent of this practice is to be the person other professionals can call when a question comes up that nobody wants to guess at. A straight answer is worth more than a careful one, and it should not depend on whether a file follows it.
Helping an accountant, an advisor, or another attorney serve their own client well is the point, not a step toward something else. Nothing is paid for a referral and nothing is accepted for one, so a call carries no obligation in either direction. The questions below are simply the ones that come up most.
Whether a client's trust is being taxed correctly, what a change of situs would do to a state return, and how the generation-skipping transfer exemption is being applied.
Whether a directed trust structure would allow a client to create a trust under South Dakota law without moving the management of the portfolio. In a directed trust structure the advisory relationship ordinarily continues.
Drafting and reviewing trust instruments a South Dakota chartered trust company is asked to administer.
South Dakota counsel on situs, decanting, and self-settled protection, working alongside you rather than in place of you. You keep the client and the relationship. This firm handles the South Dakota law question.
Deal structure, entity selection, and the tax consequence of how a transaction is written.
In practice
What the first call usually sounds like
A client asks about South Dakota
They read something, or a competitor mentioned it. You want to know whether it is real for this particular family before you take a position. Send the trust and the question gets answered directly.
An instrument is already drafted
Someone else wrote it, it is about to be signed, and something in it does not read right. A review before signing costs a great deal less than a modification afterwards.
A transaction needs structure
A sale, rollover equity, or a succession plan where how the deal is written determines what the client keeps. This is where the tax work and the transactional work meet.
The arrangement
Stated plainly, so nobody has to ask
Referral fees
None are paid and none are accepted, in either direction.
Your client
Stays your client. Relationships are not solicited, and no marketing follows a call.
What is not billed
General questions on structure, situs, statute, and tax treatment, including on instruments this firm did not draft.
What is billed
Where the firm is engaged on a specific matter, work is billed in the ordinary course.
Trustee role
This firm does not serve as trustee, so there is no interest in which institution a family selects.
Response time
This firm prides itself on being responsive.
Drafts
Sent five to ten business days before signing, so there is time to read them properly.
Admissions
South Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Elsewhere, this firm works alongside counsel admitted in your state.
Educational resource
Bring it to your team.
Presentations for firms, study groups, and professional associations, delivered in person in the region or remotely anywhere. No charge, and no pitch at the end.
- South Dakota trust law and what it does for out-of-state clients
- Qualified Small Business Stock, and what the current rules require
- Farm and ranch succession, and where the plans usually break
- Deal structure and the tax consequence of how it is written
Get in touch
Call with the question.
There is no intake process for a professional call. Describe the situation, and if it is something this firm can answer in ten minutes, that is what happens.
General questions are not billed.