Private Wealth & Asset Protection

In today’s dynamic world, safeguarding your financial future and passing it on securely to your loved ones requires proactive planning. Our firm specializes in guiding clients through the complexities of asset protection, wealth preservation, and private family funds, empowering them to build, protect, and transfer their wealth across generations.

Our real estate lawyers represent developers, lenders and real estate brokerage firms in connection with real estate transactions. Our real estate attorneys have been serving the complex needs of the Northwest Arkansas real estate community for many years. Our counsel includes matters with respect to purchasing and selling real estate and construction, financing, development, management, and the operation of commercial, industrial, and residential projects; the public and private offering of various types of real estate securities; securitized lending transactions; leasing on behalf of landlords and tenants; and real estate restructurings on behalf of lenders and borrowers.
Our real estate attorneys work with clients with real estate loans, construction and development loans, as well as interest rate swaps, letters of credit, deferred (Section 1031) tax exchanges and convertible mortgages. In addition, we represent local, regional and national real estate developers, investors, landlords, tenants, and lenders in numerous development projects, including office buildings, shopping centers and hotels.

Our Trusts & Estates, Private Wealth Planning and Family Office Representation practice is not limited to the needs of only well-established individuals and families. Rather, as a result of our expansive entrepreneurial services practice, we also have a strong clientele base of younger entrepreneurs, executives and professionals who are planning their personal affairs in anticipation of their future successful endeavors. We believe that our approach to this type of client is different from our peers – we have an integrated approach that combines tax and estate-planning fundamentals with our extensive understanding of how business actually operates. This approach allows us to focus both on lifetime benefits and planning for succession. We know that there is nothing more important to our clients than their families and businesses, and work with them to ensure that their goals and objectives for their families and businesses are properly designed and implemented. We have substantial experience in all aspects of estate and private wealth planning and the administration of trusts and estates, and are skilled in the complicated tax and probate laws governing the transfer of assets. That said, we are also sensitive to the many family and personal issues that are an inherent part of this area of the law. We represent clients from a variety of backgrounds, across all walks of life. Our extensive representation of corporations and other businesses has resulted in a special and focused emphasis on estate planning for business owners. This area of our practice focuses on planning strategies for crucial “transition events” in the life of a business owner, including sales and reorganizations. Our lawyers practicing in this area of law also help business owners with “succession” planning, looking to the eventual passage of the business on the owner’s death or retirement.

Although historically the gift and estate tax rules were fairly consistent and not subject to any substantive change, in more recent years, they have been subject to frequent change and certainly the topic of heated Congressional and public debate. As a result of the numerous changes to the gift and estate tax system and rates, strategies continue to be developed for reducing taxes. Today’s most important planning tools, such as family partnerships and limited liability companies, grantor retained annuity trusts, life insurance trusts, split dollar life insurance plans, perpetual (dynasty) trusts, and grantor trust sales were virtually unknown in past decades. Further, recent significant tax law changes have created material uncertainty concerning the future of the transfer tax system. To effectively respond, clients must now consider the use of creative new provisions in their wills and estate planning documents. An important part of our practice in this area of the law is to identify which of these tools and responses is appropriate for a particular client and to aid in implementing them.

A client’s plan could involve simple wills and powers of attorney, or could be a more sophisticated plan with a variety of trusts and entities. We recognize that there is not one plan that fits all clients, and we won’t begin to try to fit our clients into a cookie-cutter plan. In all planning that we do, we strive to tailor a plan that addresses each client’s unique goals for their family, passes ownership of business and real estate and minimizes the tax obligations and risk exposure for our clients and their descendants. Techniques and services that we often provide to our clients include:

All of our tax attorneys who practice in the field of tax law have obtained a Masters of Laws in Taxation (LL.M.) degree from New York University School of Law, universally respected as the preeminent tax program in the world. Our tax lawyers regularly advise clients on the tax aspects of all types of businesses.  We routinely render tax counsel regarding entity formation, corporate and pass-through taxation, including Subchapter S corporations, corporate reorganizations, acquisitions, spin-offs and other dispositions, joint ventures, financings and restructurings.  These tax considerations can often determine the form, structure and feasibility of the contemplated transactions.  

Our tax group is complemented by the firm’s trust and estate and private wealth planning practice which renders sophisticated, personalized estate planning and tax advice to high net worth individuals and families.  The work of our private wealth planning lawyers reflects the firm’s thoughtful, innovative and discreet approach as applied to intricate trust, estate, charitable and other highly personal planning matters. Smith Hurst has been recognized as a Tier 1 Law Firm in the fields of Tax Law as rated by Best Law Firms in America.

Our non-profit lawyers routinely establish and advise organizations on how to obtain and maintain their income tax exemption. At Smith Hurst, we work with our clients to establish the right non-profit structure from an organization’s beginning in order to provide the right footing to carry out its tax-exempt mission. We have extensive knowledge and experience in corporate governance and compliance matters which allows us to serve the specialized needs of our nonprofit clients, including boards and management, on issues such as fiduciary responsibilities, conflicts of interest, directors’ and officers’ coverage, and indemnification. We help develop best practices and prepare governance guidelines, bylaws, committee charters, conflict-of-interest policies and ethical conduct statements.
We often advise clients with respect to tax-exempt fundraising and financing and on regulations governing private foundations, including self-dealing, jeopardy investment and excess business holding rules as well as the rules on domestic and foreign grant making. We also assist clients in the formation of new nonprofit organizations, reasonable compensation issues, restrictions on lobbying and political activities, unrelated business taxable income, and the rules for supporting organizations and donor-advised funds.