Protecting your assets requires careful planning and strategic advice. Some estate planning tools can not only help you for the future, but they can also guard your hard-earned wealth today from different situations. Investing in qualified legal counsel is the first step to exploring these opportunities and achieving this goal.
At Birk Law Firm, Cape Girardeau asset protection lawyer Kelvin Birk is not only licensed to practice law, but he is also a certified public accountant. This background allows his financial acumen and legal skill to help individuals explore new and diverse estate planning arrangements such as foreign and domestic asset protection trusts (DAPT).
A Small Firm With Extensive Knowledge, Skill and Experience
Missouri is a state that allows for extensive asset protection planning. It is an ideal option not only for wealthy individuals or others who have a varied portfolio of assets, but for anyone who wants to protect their holdings from creditors and other parties. We can help you evaluate your assets and concerns to see if an offshore trust or domestic trust would suit your situation.
These asset protection trusts offer strong, legal ways to achieve privacy and protection. We can help you set up a domestic asset protection trust, or a foreign equivalent, with discretion and little hassle, in order to transfer wealth to heirs, while still also naming yourself as a protected beneficiary. This type of trust can also help you:
- Financially protect children from a previous marriage
- Guard certain assets from a future spouse
- Shield assets from the discretion of a judge if you are named in a lawsuit where you can be found personally liable
- Protect assets from creditors, which includes anyone that has a judgment entered against you or anyone else you owe money
Missouri Offshore Trusts Attorneys Here to Protect You and Your Assets
In some instances, these trusts are set up offshore, but they can be treated as a domestic trust and do not have to be reported to the IRS as an offshore trust. Unlike hidden assets, these trusts are legal, but allow for extra privacy and non-disclosure. Our tax and accounting background can help clients protect assets and maximize your investments.
Another type of trust we can help you with is structuring a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust (MAPT), also called an Income Only Trust. This will protect assets from Medicaid recovery, and can be particularly useful for people with much smaller estates. We can set up this kind of irrevocable trust that allows you to continue to receive income from assets you transfer to children or other beneficiaries. As the name implies, this type of trust allows you to legally protect your assets from Medicaid if Medicaid pays for your nursing home care. Planning is imperative - you should see us at least 5 years before you enter the nursing home!
At Birk Law Firm, we understand every client has different goals and concerns, which is why we take the time to listen to you and carefully tailor a plan that fits your needs. We believe this type of highest quality service and attention yields the best possible results for our clients in both the short and long term. We are a local firm with technical sophistication that we use to help people from all backgrounds and estates of all sizes. We welcome the opportunity to work with you.
Contact Birk Law Firm
We are a full-service law firm in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, serving clients with a full range of legal services throughout southeast Missouri. Call 573-837-4823, toll free 888-627-9191 or contact us online.
