Manage family office matters with intention, structure, and purpose
We believe a family office refers to the substantial active management, oversight, and monitoring of a family’s business, investment, and personal assets in a purposeful, prudent, and business-like manner. Often times, ultra-high net worth families concentrate their efforts on accumulating assets under management rather than the structure of their family enterprise. While this may produce favorable returns, we believe a focus on the intangible factors of family governance, harmony, legacy, and risk management are of equal or greater importance to produce great outcomes. Better economic returns and stronger family bonds become the end result.
Our Experience
RS&F represents many of the largest family offices in the United States. As one of the largest family office accounting firms in the country, we leverage our platform, institutional knowledge, thought leadership, and deep network to structure, support, and enhance family offices. We work closely with the family members, professional management, and advisors of our family office clients to effect positive outcomes that preserve wealth, mitigate risk, and preserve family harmony.
Through the lifecycle of family office client engagements, we frequently interact with clients on various matters. We generally review the entirety of a family office’s structure and make recommendations based on family culture and goals. Additionally, as events occur (i.e. marriages, capital transactions, tax law changes, etc.) we work with clients to understand the implications from such events and develop strategies to adapt their family office accordingly. Over the years, we have helped clients create new family offices and restructure old ones, and even combined several of them as well.
We have a team of JD and CPA planning professionals dedicated to tax research, deal memos, family office structuring, estate matters, and other complex issues on behalf of family office and ultra-high net worth clients. Our clients require bespoke solutions for their various needs and our planning team works closely with our tax compliance professionals to meet all needs of multigenerational families.
Thought Leadership
We wrote the book on family offices – literally. RS&F’s David Rosen is the primary author of the forthcoming Bloomberg Tax Portfolio on Family Offices (T.M. 880-1st, Family Offices), which will be the most comprehensive work on family offices to date and is used by thousands of tax advisors. Our team has structured dozens of single-family offices with unique situations and individual complexities. We understand the interrelationships between family situations, legacy, charitable endeavors, entity structure, the regulatory environment, estate planning, and tax efficiency. We also engage with clients and their other advisors to holistically support family office clients and their disparate objectives.
As a service to our clients and the family office community, we have also authored The Family Office Source. This resource provides a comprehensive guide of planning and tax matters important for and relevant to family offices and their stakeholders. Our planning team and tax advisors counsel clients on the various strategies and concepts included in The Family Office Source as they relate to specific families.
Our Services
We offer family offices a variety of services that comprehensively address the needs of family members, future generations, and their communities. Areas of expertise include:
- Family office structuring
- Income tax compliance (federal and state) for family offices and related companies, and family member investors
- Aircraft taxation
- Family gift, trust, and estate planning
- Charitable contribution planning
- Governance practices and reporting
- Private foundations
- Risk management
- State and local taxes (SALT)
- Succession planning
- Tax treatment of family office investments