Scottsdale estate planning attorneys for substantial estates.

No. Arizona levies no estate tax, no inheritance tax and no gift tax, and it has none scheduled. For an Arizona resident, planning turns on the federal system: in 2026 the estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer exemption is $15 million per person, and up to $30 million for a married couple, with transfers above it taxed at 40 percent. If you are domiciled in another state and only winter here, your home state's estate or inheritance tax may still apply. Families near the line plan differently from families well below it.

Our fees are published, not quoted from a meter. A complete core plan for an estate under $5 million starts at a fixed $5,000 for one client and $5,500 for a married couple, and at $6,000 and $6,500 for estates of $5 million to $15 million. One Arizona deed is included; each additional deed is $350. Third-party costs such as recording and notary fees are passed through at cost. The initial consultation is billed at the published hourly rate, currently $460 with a one-hour minimum, and is credited toward a fixed fee when you engage within thirty days. The rates page carries the full schedule, and our 2026 Arizona fee guide explains what drives the number.

Most estate planning is done on a published fixed fee, set in writing before work begins. Open-ended, contested or high-volume matters are billed hourly against a retainer, and the 2026 attorney rates run from $460 to $1,050 an hour depending on the attorney and the matter, with paralegal and administrative time from $75. Every rate is published in advance, and no engagement is formed until a written engagement letter is executed.

Both. For most Scottsdale families with a home and retirement accounts, the answer is a funded revocable living trust with a pour-over will behind it. In Arizona a will does not avoid probate; it only tells the court how to distribute. A funded trust keeps the estate private, out of court and available to your successor trustee the week it is needed rather than months later.

Control and tax treatment. A revocable trust can be amended or revoked while you have capacity, you remain trustee, and the assets stay inside your taxable estate, which is what preserves the basis step-up at death. An irrevocable trust gives up that control. When it is funded for others and drawn correctly, the assets leave your estate and sit beyond the reach of a beneficiary's creditors and a beneficiary's divorce. Arizona does not shield a trust you settle for your own benefit from your own creditors (A.R.S. 14-10505). Most plans of any size use both.

Sometimes, but rarely for everything. Beneficiary deeds, payable-on-death and transfer-on-death designations, and survivorship titling pass the assets they cover without probate at any size. For whatever is left, A.R.S. 14-3971, as amended by HB 2116 effective September 26, 2025, lets a successor collect up to $200,000 of personal property by affidavit thirty days after death, and up to $300,000 of Arizona real property by an affidavit filed with the Superior Court six months after death, each net of liens, with real property measured by the county assessor's full cash value. Each of those tools covers one asset and none of them plans for incapacity, so above those limits, or with a business or several properties, a funded trust is the answer.

An uncontested informal probate in Maricopa County Superior Court usually runs six to twelve months. The personal representative must publish notice to creditors, and under A.R.S. 14-3801 claims are barred four months after the first publication, or sixty days after a known creditor is mailed notice if that is later, so the estate cannot close sooner even when the family agrees on everything. A contested matter, an unclear will or Arizona real estate owned by an out-of-state decedent all extend it.

It helps, and it is not a plan. An Arizona beneficiary deed under A.R.S. 33-405 passes the house at death without probate, but only if it is recorded before death. If the named beneficiary dies first and the deed names no successor, the deed is void, the antilapse statute does not rescue it, and the house goes through probate. It does nothing for incapacity, for a minor, or for a beneficiary in the middle of a divorce or a lawsuit. We use one where a property has to stay in your own name, naming your trust as the beneficiary, rather than as a substitute for a trust.

At the first death, both halves of community property receive a step-up in income tax basis under Internal Revenue Code section 1014(b)(6), not just the deceased spouse's half. For a couple holding long-held stock or a home bought decades ago, that single feature is often worth more than every other provision in the plan. It does not apply to IRAs, 401(k)s or annuities, and it can be put at risk when community property is retitled as joint tenancy or as separate property. It also changes how marital and family shares are drawn and which trust holds what. Out-of-state templates routinely get it wrong.

$15 million per person in 2026, and up to $30 million for a married couple, with the rate above it at 40 percent. The couple's figure is not automatic: the survivor keeps the first spouse's unused exemption only if a timely estate tax return elects portability or the plan captures it in a credit shelter trust, and the generation-skipping exemption cannot be ported at all. The 2025 act made the amount permanent and indexes it for inflation beginning in 2027, but permanence in tax law means only that no expiry is written down today. Estates that grow at 6 percent double in twelve years, which is why families well under the line still plan as if they will cross it.

$19,000 per recipient from each giver in 2026, to as many people as you like. An Arizona couple giving community property can give $38,000 to one person with no return, because each spouse is treated as giving half. If the gift comes from one spouse's separate property, treating it as split between you requires a Form 709 even though no tax is due. Tuition and medical bills paid directly to the school or provider are unlimited and do not count. Gifts in trust often need a return at any amount, because a gift of a future interest does not qualify for the annual exclusion unless the beneficiary holds a present withdrawal right. Larger gifts require a Form 709 and reduce the $15 million lifetime exemption, but no tax is due until that exemption is exhausted.

Usually, yes. If you own a policy on your own life, the death benefit, not the cash value, is counted in your gross estate under Internal Revenue Code section 2042. In Arizona, when the policy is community property, half is counted in the insured spouse's estate and the other half belongs to the surviving spouse, where it is counted later. Either way the household total includes all of it: a couple who believe they are worth $24 million and own an $8 million policy have a $32 million estate, above the $30 million a married couple can shelter in 2026. An irrevocable life insurance trust owns the policy instead, which keeps the proceeds outside both estates. Its trustee can lend to the estate or buy assets from it, which provides cash for estate tax without bringing the proceeds back in.

A spousal lifetime access trust is an irrevocable trust one spouse funds by gift for the other spouse and, usually, the children. It lets the donor spouse use up to $15 million of lifetime exemption now, moving the gift and all later growth outside both estates while the other spouse remains a discretionary beneficiary, so the family keeps indirect access. It is the instrument we use most for couples between $20 million and $60 million. The design turns on Arizona community property (the gift has to come from the donor's separate property), the reciprocal trust doctrine when both spouses create trusts, and what happens on divorce or an early death.

Up to five hundred years under the statute. A.R.S. 14-2901 validates an interest that vests or terminates within 500 years of its creation, far longer than the common law's lives in being plus twenty-one years, and it separately validates interests in certain trusts whose trustee has the power to sell trust assets. A 2018 Arizona Attorney General opinion concluded that both provisions are likely inconsistent with the perpetuities clause in Article 2, Section 29 of the Arizona Constitution. That opinion is advisory and the question remains open, so we draft dynasty trusts with a perpetuities savings clause and the flexibility to change situs and governing law. Generation-skipping transfer tax exemption is allocated when the trust is funded, and a fully exempt trust stays exempt as it grows.

You need a plan that addresses the Arizona property. Your domicile governs most of the estate, but Arizona real estate held in your own name faces a second, ancillary probate here, in a court your family does not live near. Deeding the Scottsdale or Paradise Valley home into your revocable trust avoids that proceeding; where title has to stay in your own name, a recorded beneficiary deed naming the trust does the same job for that one property. Arizona adds no estate or inheritance tax, but your home state may impose its own, so we coordinate with your home-state counsel.

You, while you can. The harder question is who follows. A child who lives here is convenient and can be exactly the wrong choice in a family where the siblings disagree; a corporate trustee is neutral, permanent and charges for it. For an irrevocable trust, an independent trustee is often required for the tax result to hold. We design the succession and the removal power together, not separately.

They pass by beneficiary designation, outside the will and, unless the trust is the named beneficiary, outside the trust, which is why a stale designation quietly overrides a beautifully drafted plan. Under the SECURE Act most adult children must empty an inherited account within ten years, and annual withdrawals are required in years one through nine when the owner died on or after their required beginning date. Inherited retirement accounts receive no step-up in basis. The tax consequence of the order in which accounts are drained is part of the design.

Everything above the balance sheet. For estate tax, a closely held company is valued at fair market value, the price a willing buyer and a willing seller would agree on, as established by a qualified appraisal, not at book value and not at the owner's own number. It is usually illiquid at exactly the moment the tax is due, nine months after death. We plan the entity, the buy-sell, the appraisal and the estate as one file. Start with estate planning for business owners and, if a sale is near, business exits and liquidity events.

When the law moves or the family does. A marriage, a divorce, a sale, a move across state lines, a death or new grandchildren all change the right answer, and the 2025 act reset the exemption underneath every plan drawn before it. A revocable trust is updated by amendment for minor changes and by restatement for anything structural. An irrevocable trust can often still be changed, by decanting, a nonjudicial settlement agreement or court modification. Arizona authorizes decanting in A.R.S. 14-10819 and nonjudicial settlement agreements in A.R.S. 14-10111, so long as no material purpose of the trust is violated.

A partner holding an LL.M. From the first meeting through the execution of documents, the attorney who designed the structure drafts it, and both partners are admitted to the United States Tax Court, so the person who drew the design is the person who would defend it. No document service, no paralegal drafting and no hand-off to an associate you have never met. Our staff handles scheduling, intake, notarization and recording under attorney supervision. Meet them here.

Yes, by design. Most of the families we serve already have a CPA, a wealth advisor and an insurance agent, and the plan only works when all of them are pointed at the same structure. If you are the advisor rather than the client, our page for financial advisors sets out how the referral works and what the client gets back. A family office gets the same treatment.

The office is at 15100 N. 78th Way, Suite 203, in the Scottsdale Airpark, open Monday through Thursday, 9am to 5pm, with Saturdays by appointment; work requested outside regular business hours is subject to the after-hours terms on our rates page. We serve Scottsdale, North Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Carefree, Cave Creek and Phoenix from it, and travel for in-home appointments across the East Valley, Prescott and Sedona.