From our base in New York, we represent a diverse range of clients across the country and around the world.

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Areas of Focus

David S. Staggs

Counsel

212 621 0941

Overview

David Staggs’ tax-efficient strategies help his clients protect their wealth and ensure that assets reach their intended beneficiaries. Working closely with families and their advisory teams, David structures and implements comprehensive estate plans, advises on irrevocable trusts, and manages estate administration.

Clients rely on David for plans that balance their unique estate goals with the complexities of state and federal tax laws. He is skilled at using legal options creatively to reduce estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax and protect assets from potential creditors. Equally important is his focus on non-tax goals. Whether a client wants to carry on a philanthropic legacy, structure bequests in a blended family, or plan for succession in a closely-held business, David creates individualized solutions.

David also helps executors and trustees in the estate and trust administration process, from probating wills to preparing estate tax returns to IRS audit defense, to the final accounting and distribution of property. Trustees also seek his counsel when administering revocable and irrevocable trusts, including decanting assets or changing the state governing law to reduce or defer income tax. 

Often serving as the “family lawyer,” David consults on a wide range of asset protection and tax issues such as structuring premium-financed life insurance transactions, establishing domestic asset protection trusts, and gifting private business interests before an equity sale.

Before joining Davis+Gilbert, David was an associate at Moses & Singer and previously taught as an adjunct professor for the LL.M. program in Elder Law and Estate Planning at Western New England University School of Law.

Representative Experience

  • Represented executors of a taxable estate with real estate interests - owned through partnerships and S corporations - in the audit/examination of both federal and New York estate tax returns. Successfully settled the examination on favorable terms to the estate and executors, avoiding the imposition of an additional $2-3 million in total estate tax. (This matter was handled at a previous firm.)

  • Implemented a strategy involving decanting highly appreciated Qualified Small Business Stock held in a single irrevocable trust into five separate trusts, achieving the ability to obtain multiple exclusions of $10,000,000 of gain from the sale of such stock. (This matter was handled at a previous firm.)

  • Executed a premium-financed life insurance structure to provide liquidity for an estate comprised of mostly illiquid assets for a client with insufficient cash flow to support large premium payments. (This matter was handled at a previous firm.)

  • Successfully argued that a contract for the sale of real estate at the time of a client’s death represented intangible property, rather than real estate, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars of state estate tax. (This matter was handled at a previous firm.)

  • Helped successor trustees correct mistakes made by the prior trustee during the administration of an irrevocable trust, preventing the trust assets from facing estate tax and the grantor from wasting their estate/gift tax exemption. (This matter was handled at a previous firm.)

  • Provided an estate and tax savings strategy that allowed a married couple to make large gifts that reduced their taxable estates while still benefiting from 100% of their total assets and maintaining effective control over investments and distributions. (This matter was handled at a previous firm.)

Insights + Events

Credentials

Education

  • Georgetown University Law Center (L.L.M., with distinction, 2013)
  • Western New England University School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 2012)
  • Frances Marion University (B.S., cum laude, 2008)
Bar Admissions
  • New York
  • Connecticut