Marion Hancock Fish is a partner in the Trusts & Estates, Family Business Succession Planning, Tax, Corporate and Elder Law & Special Needs Practices. She focuses her practice on representing clients in matters involving estate planning, transfer-of-wealth tax issues, family business planning and succession, charitable giving, not-for-profit law and elder law and special needs administration. Ms. Fish works with clients to develop comprehensive plans, and manages the implementation of these plans for effective and efficient estate and trust funding and administration, using a team approach to address all aspects of estate and tax planning, and administration.
Having worked with numerous family business owners, Ms. Fish has a significant level of experience developing plans for successful business transition to minimize transfer tax costs and to position businesses for continued success. She also partners with other professionals, including accountants, financial planners, corporate trustees and business valuation experts, both locally and nationally. Ms. Fish works with those professionals to address matters such as business valuation; retirement planning; life insurance; estate, gift and income tax planning; and tax audit matters.
Representative Matters
- Assisted the founder of a rapidly-expanding national company to protect assets and transfer wealth with minimal tax costs employing techniques such as multiple grantor-retained annuity trusts, the formation of a family-owned limited liability company, and generation-skipping transfer trusts, including Delaware trust planning.
- Implemented plans for a family business owner to transfer holdings to the next generation, utilizing the recently increased federal gift tax exemption and favorable expert valuation of a family-owned business. Ms. Fish continues to advise the owners on the new management structure, positioning the business for continued success.
- Provided guidance to a regional charitable organization relating to the management of a $50 million bequest, including the formation of new related entities and the development of comprehensive policies for ongoing stewardship of the funds received.
- Successfully resolved several estate and gift tax audits involving various multimillion-dollar family-owned businesses in a variety of industries such as energy, commercial real estate, and construction.
- Represented the outside member of a family business to maximize the client’s interest relating to the settlement of the deceased parents’ estates (valued in excess of $25 million).
