Kenneth D. Meskin has more than forty years of experience in sophisticated trust and estate planning, the administration of trusts and estates, probate litigation, and closely-held business planning.
Ken is extremely adept at using sophisticated and creative tax and estate planning techniques to ensure that assets pass to the intended beneficiaries at as little cost as possible to the client. In order to minimize state and federal tax burdens and transfer wealth, Ken has structured gift-giving programs, insurance planning, established charitable trusts and foundations, devised installment sale transactions, grantor trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, zeroed-out GRATs, and private annuity transactions, planned for the succession of family businesses to younger generations, and has drafted wills, revocable and irrevocable trust agreements, powers of attorney, and living wills.
In the area of estate and trust administration, Ken has worked on a wide variety of matters, including estate and trust litigation, post-mortem tax planning, the preparation of estate, gift, generation skipping, income and inheritance tax returns, federal estate tax audits, state inheritance proceedings, the representation of clients before the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Tax Court, and guardianship issues and proceedings.
Ken regularly counsels closely-held corporations and other companies in a variety of issues, including tax strategies, tax disputes, mergers and acquisitions, structuring of joint ventures, partnerships and limited liability companies, and succession planning.
He is a frequent lecturer on tax and estate planning topics to accountants, financial planners, insurance professionals, and other attorneys, and has authored numerous articles on a variety of related topics.
Ken is listed in the current issue of The Best Lawyers In America in the Trusts and Estates Law section and has been selected for inclusion for New Jersey Super Lawyers in the Estate Planning & Probate section.