Kathryn Muldoon

Sensitively developing business succession, trust and estate solutions

Katie Muldoon advises individuals and families on legacy, estate, trust and tax planning, and has extensive experience counseling family and closely held businesses on succession planning. With deep knowledge of the tax code, her practice focuses on:

• Estate planning
• Estate administration
• Business succession
• Trust administration

Katie understands that each family is unique and that different generations within a family and members of different family lines have varying perspectives on the family’s assets, its business and its legacy. She knows how to navigate conflicting perspectives and emotions even as she develops trust and estate solutions to fit each client's needs.

Trust & Estates

• Working with high-net-worth families to structure tax-efficient estate plans.
• Drafting complex trusts to facilitate intergenerational transfers of wealth.
• Reviewing and recommending updates to corporate governance documents to ensure they are in sync with a client's estate plan.
• Probating estates and preparing estate tax returns.
• Advising trustees, or acting as trustee, of irrevocable trusts.
• Handling IRS estate tax audits.

Business Succession Planning

• Learning about the history of the company and the people involved in order to develop options and plans for company leadership and business strategy.
• Tax planning for business owners prior to the sale of their businesses.
• Planning to ensure appropriate control of a business following the death of a matriarch/patriarch.
• Updating the estate plan for a business owner during the sale to a family member, achieving the goal of treating all family members fairly.
• Structuring a business transition to protect against a future divorce.
• Negotiating a smooth exit from a family business.
• Helping assess the merits of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) as a transition option.
• Implementing stock redemption programs to provide security for the spouse and child.

• Assisted a second-generation business owner in transitioning control of the company to the adult child who is actively involved in the business, while economically benefitting other adult children who were not involved in the business.
• Advised a first-generation business owner on the transition of company stock in a way that secures an income stream for retirement.
• Advised first- and second-generation owners of a family business on tax planning prior to sale of the business.