Boland Law Group, PLLCPassionately Preserving Wealth™
Estate planning above $10 million
High net worth estate planning attorneys in Scottsdale
Boland Law Group designs estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax plans for Arizona families above roughly $10 million: SLATs, dynasty trusts, GRATs, ILITs, charitable trusts, family LLCs and QSBS stacking, drawn by two LL.M. tax attorneys admitted to the United States Tax Court, on fixed fees published before you call.
Who this page is for
This page is written for households with a net worth above roughly $10 million, and for the CPAs, wealth advisors and family office staff who serve them. Below that line the federal estate tax is rarely the question and a well-drawn revocable trust plan does the work. Above it, the questions change: which assets should leave the estate now and which should stay for a step-up in basis, which spouse should give, where the GST exemption goes, and what the plan will look like to an IRS examiner ten years from now.
Four kinds of client bring us this work most often. Retired executives will recognize themselves on planning in retirement, and owners who want company counsel and personal counsel under one roof, on outside general counsel. Below $10 million, our estate planning page describes the core plan and our 2026 Arizona fee guide prices it.
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Owners of closely held companies
One illiquid, still-growing asset. Discounted transfers of non-voting interests, sales to grantor trusts and succession terms belong in one drawing.
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Executives with concentrated stock
Restricted stock, options and deferred compensation vest on a schedule the plan must respect, around the blackout windows and 10b5-1 plans already in place.
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Family offices and multi-generational families
You have advisors. You need counsel who will draft, allocate the exemptions and defend the return, in your office's cadence. See also multi-generational families.
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Founders approaching a liquidity event
The window to move stock, stack the QSBS exclusion and freeze the value is measured in quarters. It closes at the letter of intent.
Why the planner should also be the tax lawyer
Most estate plans above $10 million are drawn by an estate planner and reviewed, if at all, by someone else's tax department. That split is where advanced planning fails. The instruments on this page are creatures of the Internal Revenue Code: a SLAT is a section 2036 question, a GRAT a section 2702 question, a dynasty trust a chapter 13 allocation, and each is judged years later by an examiner reading a Form 709.
Boland Law Group is a two-partner, father and son firm, and both partners hold the LL.M., the advanced law degree in tax: Robert W. Boland, Jr. in Taxation, Grant M. Boland in Estate Planning and Elder Law. Both are admitted to the United States Tax Court, and the firm keeps an active tax controversy practice.
So the attorney who drafts your SLAT is the attorney who would answer an IRS notice about it, and the trust is drawn for that examination: two spousal trusts made deliberately different so the reciprocal trust doctrine cannot collapse them, every gift reported with adequate disclosure so the statute of limitations runs, annuities paid on the day they are due, Crummey notices sent every year. Nothing is delegated. You sit across from a partner, and that partner is there for the funding, the returns and, if it ever comes to it, the audit.
Founding partner, tax partner
- LL.M. in Taxation
- Admitted, United States Tax Court
- AV Preeminent, Martindale-Hubbell
Tax and estate planning partner
- LL.M. in Estate Planning and Elder Law
- Admitted, United States Tax Court
- Best Lawyers, Lawyer of the Year, Trusts and Estates, Scottsdale, 2027
The high net worth planning toolkit
Nine instruments, each a one-way door once funded. The short version is here; the long version is in the linked article where one has been written. Every one is priced on the published schedule below.
The revocable trust foundation
Every advanced plan sits on a revocable living trust, a pour-over will, financial and healthcare powers of attorney and a HIPAA authorization. The revocable trust does no transfer tax work: its assets stay in your estate and receive a full step-up in basis at death, which for appreciated assets you mean to keep is the point. What it does is hold the architecture. It names who acts if you cannot, routes assets to the marital and credit shelter shares, carries the Clayton QTIP language that lets the executor decide at the first death how much to shelter, and gives the successor trustee the powers a family office will need. For a substantial estate it adds portability elections, GST allocation at death and formula clauses tied to the exemption.
Read: Revocable trusts and estate planning after the 2025 law
Spousal lifetime access trust (SLAT)
A SLAT is an irrevocable trust that one spouse funds for the benefit of the other, and usually for descendants, using lifetime gift exemption. The gifted assets and all of their future growth leave both estates, while the household keeps indirect access through distributions to the beneficiary spouse. It is the most used instrument on this page for couples between $20 million and $60 million, because it removes value without removing the family's ability to reach it. The trust must be funded with the donor's separate property, which in Arizona usually means a community property partition first. Two SLATs must be materially different so the reciprocal trust doctrine does not put both back in the estates. A swap power lets low-basis assets come back for a step-up before death.
Read: Spousal lifetime access trusts: estate tax and basis planning
Dynasty and GST trusts
A dynasty trust is an irrevocable trust designed to last for generations, to which generation-skipping transfer exemption is allocated at funding so that its assets pass to children, grandchildren and beyond without estate or GST tax at each generation. The GST exemption is $15,000,000 per person in 2026, equal to the estate exemption, but unlike the estate exemption it is not portable between spouses: it is allocated in life, captured at death, or lost. A dynasty trust allocates it now, on the Form 709, at a zero inclusion ratio, so every dollar of growth over the next century is exempt. Arizona lets the trust run for 500 years and taxes its income at a flat 2.5 per cent. Many SLATs are drafted as dynasty trusts from the start.
Irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT)
An ILIT owns the life insurance policy so that the death benefit lands outside both estates. A $10 million survivorship policy owned personally adds $10 million to a taxable estate; owned by a properly drafted ILIT it adds nothing, and the proceeds are there to buy illiquid assets from the estate or to pay the tax on them. Premiums are gifted to the trust and kept inside the annual exclusion, $19,000 per beneficiary in 2026 and $38,000 with gift-splitting, through Crummey withdrawal powers, which must be administered with written notices every year. Skipped notices are how ILITs fail on audit. An existing policy can be moved in, but it is screened first for the transfer-for-value rule and the three-year rule under section 2035.
Grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT)
A GRAT is an estate freeze. You transfer an asset to the trust and take back a fixed annuity for a term of years, sized so that the value of the gift is close to zero. Whatever the asset earns above the IRS section 7520 rate for the month of funding passes to the remainder beneficiaries free of gift tax. It is the instrument for a single volatile asset with a defined upside: pre-IPO stock, a company ahead of a sale, a concentrated position. The grantor must survive the term or the assets return to the estate, so short rolling GRATs of two to three years are common, and GST exemption cannot be efficiently allocated to a GRAT, so it is a children's instrument. A missed or misdated annuity payment is how GRATs fail.
Charitable lead and remainder trusts
Split-interest trusts divide one asset between family and philanthropy, and which interest leads decides the tax result. A charitable remainder trust, a CRAT, CRUT or Flip-CRUT, pays you or your family an income stream for life or a term of years and leaves the remainder to charity. It is the tool for selling a highly appreciated asset without immediate capital gain, with a partial income tax deduction on funding. A charitable lead trust reverses the order: charity is paid first, for a term, and what is left passes to descendants. A lead annuity trust zeroed out at today's section 7520 rate can move the remainder to the next generation at little or no gift tax cost, which makes it a wealth transfer instrument as much as a charitable one.
FLP and LLC structuring
A family limited partnership or family LLC is the container that makes an estate divisible, governable and transferable on your terms. The senior generation keeps the general partner or manager interest, and with it control; limited or non-voting interests are gifted or sold to trusts. Because a non-controlling, non-marketable interest is worth less than a pro rata share of the underlying assets, a qualified appraiser will typically value the transferred interests at a discount, so more moves for the same exemption. The IRS has litigated these structures for two decades, and the cases turn on operation as much as drafting: a real business purpose, respect for the formalities, no commingling, and no retained enjoyment under section 2036. Our Tax Court experience includes FLP matters.
QSBS stacking for founders
Section 1202 excludes gain on qualified small business stock held more than five years, up to the greater of $10 million or ten times basis per issuer for stock issued before July 5, 2025, and up to $15 million for stock issued after that date under the 2025 tax law, which also added a partial exclusion beginning at three years. The cap is per taxpayer, and a non-grantor trust is a separate taxpayer. Stacking means gifting founder shares to several non-grantor trusts before a sale so that each trust claims its own cap, multiplying the exclusion across a family. The gift does not restart the holding period. Transfers must be complete, and the trusts independent, before a letter of intent is signed.
Read: QSBS under IRC 1202 after the OBBBA and QSBS stacking with trusts
BDIT and BDOT
A beneficiary defective inheritor's trust is settled by a third party, often a parent, with a modest seed gift. The beneficiary, usually the client, is the trust's deemed owner for income tax purposes, may act as trustee over the investments, and can sell appreciating assets to the trust without recognizing gain, yet the trust sits outside the beneficiary's estate and beyond the beneficiary's creditors. A beneficiary deemed owner trust reaches a similar income tax result through a different power, a withdrawal right over the trust's taxable income. Both are the most aggressive architecture on this page. The seed capital, any guarantees and the audit posture are analyzed before a word is drafted, and the instrument is engaged, or declined, with eyes open. Neither is a first instrument.
The exemption math, with a worked example
In 2026 the federal estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax exemption is $15,000,000 per person and $30,000,000 for a married couple, indexed for inflation from 2027 with no scheduled sunset. Above it the federal rate is 40 per cent. Arizona adds nothing.
Consider a couple with a $22 million estate. If both died tomorrow they would owe nothing, because $22 million sits inside $30 million. The problem is time: a diversified estate grows faster than the exemption indexes, so a couple safely under the line today can be $20 million over it at the second death. The ledger runs year twenty, at 6 per cent growth and 2.5 per cent indexing.
The SLAT and the dynasty trust use the couple's exemption at today's values, on assets whose growth then happens outside the estate. Sixteen million dollars leaves the taxable estate the day the trusts are funded; by year twenty it is fifty-one, none of it taxed at either death, and the dynasty trust's share is exempt at the children's deaths too. One caveat: assets in an irrevocable trust get no step-up in basis, so the plan gives the growth, keeps the basis, and uses a swap power to bring low-basis assets back before death. See our notes on the 2025 exemption changes and why planning is still crucial.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Without planning | |
| Estate today | $22,000,000 |
| Estate at year twenty, 6 per cent growth | $70,560,000 |
| Combined exemption at year twenty, 2.5 per cent indexing | $49,160,000 |
| Taxable | $21,400,000 |
| Federal estate tax at 40 per cent | $8,560,000 |
| SLAT plus dynasty trust, funded in 2026 | |
| Spouse A funds a SLAT with separate property | $10,000,000 |
| Spouse B funds a dynasty trust, GST exemption allocated | $6,000,000 |
| Exemption used today, of $30,000,000 | $16,000,000 |
| The two trusts at year twenty, outside both estates | $51,310,000 |
| Remaining estate, $6,000,000 grown twenty years | $19,240,000 |
| Exemption still available, $49,160,000 less $16,000,000 | $33,160,000 |
| Taxable | $0 |
| Federal estate tax | $0 |
Federal estate tax kept by the family in this example, plus about $35 million of growth that never enters the taxable estate. Two documents, two gift tax returns.
Arizona advantages for wealth transfer
Four features of Arizona law make it one of the better states in the country to hold a family's wealth in trust.
No state estate, inheritance or gift tax
Arizona levies none of the three. A family that moved here from Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, New York or Minnesota left a state estate tax behind. Arizona adds nothing to the federal 40 per cent, and its flat 2.5 per cent income tax applies to trusts too.
A 500-year rule against perpetuities
Under A.R.S. § 14-2901 a trust interest may remain unvested for 500 years. A dynasty trust drafted here can hold assets for grandchildren and their grandchildren without a forced termination, which is what makes the GST allocation worth making.
A.R.S. § 14-2901(A)(2)
Decanting and nonjudicial modification
A.R.S. § 14-10819 lets a trustee with discretion pour an irrevocable trust into a new one with better terms, without court approval, and § 14-10111 lets interested persons settle administrative questions by agreement. The one-way door has a service hatch: an old ILIT or a pre-2026 SLAT can be brought current. See trust modification and decanting.
A.R.S. §§ 14-10819, 14-10111
Community property, used in the right order
Arizona is one of nine community property states. At the first death both halves of community property receive a full basis step-up under IRC § 1014(b)(6), not only the decedent's half. And because a SLAT must be funded with separate property, the plan begins with a partition agreement. In the wrong order, the beneficiary spouse becomes a co-grantor and the trust is back in the estate.
Fixed fees for advanced planning, published
We publish our fees. Every instrument on this page is priced on the firm's Advanced Planning and Lifetime Wealth Transfer schedule, which you can read before you call. We know of no other Arizona private client practice that puts its advanced planning fees in public.
Each figure is a minimum, fixed in a written engagement letter before work begins. It covers design, drafting, execution and the funding of the first $7.5 million; each additional $1 million adds the stated per-million figure, and a rushed or hard-to-value engagement takes a published loading. Appraisals and situs counsel pass through at cost. There is no meter, and no surprise at the end.
| Instrument | 2026 minimum | Each added $1M |
|---|---|---|
| ILIT, single life | $7,500+ | $750 |
| ILIT, survivorship | $10,000+ | $750 |
| SLAT, one spouse | $35,000+ | $1,500 |
| SLATs, both spouses, non-reciprocal pair | $60,000+ | $2,000 |
| GRAT, first vintage | $35,000+ | $1,000 |
| Standalone GST or dynasty trust | $40,000+ | $1,500 |
| Charitable remainder trust | $35,000+ | $1,000 |
| Charitable lead trust | $50,000+ | $1,500 |
| Family LLC or FLP, formation and valuation coordination | $45,000+ | $1,000 |
| BDIT or BDOT | $15,000+ | $2,000 |
Minimums from the published 2026 schedule, before the timing and asset-risk loadings, each including the first $7.5 million funded. Where this table and the schedule differ, the schedule controls.
Working with your CPA, RIA and insurance advisors
Advanced planning is a team sport, and we are one seat at the table, not the head of it. We draft, allocate the exemptions and defend the returns. Nobody is asked to move.
Your CPA
Prepares the Form 709 and the fiduciary returns. Every gift-driven instrument comes with a reporting memorandum: what was gifted, how it was valued, whether gift-splitting is elected, how GST exemption is allocated. We coordinate the filing; we do not prepare the return.
Your investment advisor
Keeps custody and manages the assets. We say which accounts move to which trust, in what order, on one funding checklist everyone can see. We take no assets under management and no referral fees. Advisors: our page for financial advisors sets out how a matter gets on the calendar.
Your insurance advisor
Designs the policy. We design the trust that owns it, screen an existing policy before it moves, and administer the Crummey notices. Drafts go to every advisor before signing, and the trust administration that follows is priced as a companion service, never a loading.
Ten questions high net worth families ask
At what net worth does advanced estate planning make sense?
Usually above $10 million for a couple, or sooner if a business or concentrated stock position is growing quickly. The test is projected estate size at the second death, not today's balance sheet.
Is the $15 million exemption permanent?
Under current law, yes. The 2025 tax law set the federal estate, gift and GST exemption at $15,000,000 per person from 2026, indexed from 2027, with no scheduled sunset. Our plans use formula clauses in case Congress changes it.
Should we use our exemption now if we are under $30 million?
Often, yes. A gift removes the asset and all of its future growth at today's value: a $16 million gift made now removes about $51 million from the estate at year twenty on 6 per cent growth. A SLAT keeps indirect access while it does so.
What is the difference between a SLAT and a dynasty trust?
A SLAT is defined by who benefits: the donor's spouse, and usually descendants. A dynasty trust is defined by how long it lasts and by the GST exemption allocated to it. A well-drawn SLAT is often both.
Do assets in an irrevocable trust get a step-up in basis at death?
Generally no. Assets given away during life keep the donor's basis. So the plan gives the growth and keeps the basis, and a swap power lets low-basis assets come back into the estate before death.
Can an irrevocable trust be changed later?
Within limits. Arizona's decanting statute, A.R.S. § 14-10819, lets a trustee with discretion move assets into a new trust with better terms without court approval, and nonjudicial settlement agreements under § 14-10111 resolve administrative questions by consent.
How long does advanced planning take?
The standard runway is 90 days from engagement to funding, which is what the published fees assume. Shorter runways take a published timing loading. Anything tied to a business sale should begin before the letter of intent.
Do you prepare the gift tax return?
No. We deliver a reporting memorandum to your CPA covering adequate disclosure, gift-splitting posture and GST exemption allocation, and we coordinate the filing. Your CPA prepares the Form 709.
What does a SLAT cost at Boland Law Group?
A single SLAT begins at $35,000 on the published 2026 schedule, including the first $7.5 million funded, with $1,500 for each additional $1 million. A non-reciprocal pair begins at $60,000. The fee is fixed in writing before work begins.
Do you work with clients outside Scottsdale?
Yes. We meet at our Scottsdale office, by secure video, and by in-home appointment in Sedona and the Prescott area. The instruments on this page are governed by federal tax law and Arizona trust law, statewide.
Start with a conversation.
We limit our client volume deliberately, so the first meeting is unhurried. Bring your balance sheet, your existing documents and the names of your advisors. We will tell you which of the nine instruments belong in your plan, and what each costs, before you decide anything.
15100 N. 78th Way, Suite 203
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
Directions and parking
Monday to Thursday, 9am to 5pm
Saturdays by appointment
Sedona and the Prescott area
Secure video statewide
General information about federal and Arizona law as of September 2026, not legal or tax advice for any particular person. Exemption figures are the 2026 amounts under the Internal Revenue Code as amended in 2025. Fee figures are minimums from the firm's published 2026 schedule, before loadings. Passionately Preserving Wealth is a trademark of Boland Law Group, PLLC.