PRACTICE
TAX LAW
Vincent L. Teahan and James P. Constantino formed Teahan & Constantino to provide the Hudson Valley with legal services concentrating on tax law and the related area of trusts and estates law. More than 35 years thereafter, the firm continues to primarily focus on these practice areas.
James P. Constantino, who holds an LLM degree from New York University School of Law, an MS in accounting from the State University of New York at Albany, and a CPA license, is charged with primary responsibility for the firm’s personal and business tax practice and focuses on a few primary areas of tax law:
Tax planning, including the consideration of what business unit (corporate, limited liability company, partnership, etc.) the client chooses to build his or her business venture, after taking account of the tax attributes and suitability of each entity and transactional tax advice. In these matters, the firm’s tax lawyers frequently find themselves working together
with colleagues in one or more of its other practice areas. When it comes to handling business acquisitions, sales and mergers, the goal is to add value by helping the client take a long term view, rather than simply handling a transaction.Tax Disputes: We are frequently engaged when clients are notified, or think they will soon be notified, of potential civil liability and/or criminal liability. The client’s tax picture is, in a word, broken, and our job is, if possible, to fix it. The firm’s lawyers handle a broad range of disputed tax matters, including Federal and New York civil tax and criminal tax examinations and investigations involving income, employment and sales taxes, and seek to resolve these matters through administrative proceedings and/or litigation.
TRUST AND ESTATE PLANNING, ADMINISTRATION AND LITIGATION
Since its formation, Teahan & Constantino has concentrated its practice on planning and administration of trusts and estates, alongside tax law.
Vincent L. Teahan is charged with overall responsibility for managing the firm’s trusts and estates practice.
A client owning substantial assets faces potential difficulties connected with managing assets through old age. After death, the large estates must pay Federal and New York estate taxes, sometimes at marginal rates of nearly 50 percent. Our job is to help the client keep what they have, while at the same time helping the client build assets for the benefit of the family, charity, or both. Lawyers in the firm’s tax and trusts and estates departments work together to organize client family business ventures so that, ideally from the start, the family can build assets for the long term on a tax-advantaged basis, if possible.
To effectively accomplish our clients’ goals, estate planning has to go well beyond mere consideration of tax advantages. We stand ready to help clients build family wealth in a way that best serves their goals for overall family well-being. This can often involve creation of multi-generational trusts for families. It is in the combination of tax planning and personal wealth planning that we seek to add value to the family’s estate planning equation.
After the death of a client, we administer estates and trusts with a view toward successful resolution of possible estate tax audits and maximum efficiency in asset disposal and distribution.
Trust and estate litigation makes up an important part of the firm’s practice, and we frequently represent clients in contested will and trust proceedings in Surrogate’s Courts throughout New York State. Over the years, we have built up expertise in analyzing issues connected with undue influence and lack of testamentary capacity, and their effect on wills and trusts. We endeavor to fix what’s broken with plans that have adversely affected our clients.
CORPORATE LAW
Given its foundation in tax and estate planning, Teahan & Constantino LLP lawyers necessarily get involved in corporate, limited liability company, and other business transactions for their clients. Our goal, as with all other areas of our practice, is to provide our clients with a foundation on which to grow their assets in a tax context that will also allow them to keep what they have after the imposition of present or future taxes.
The firm devotes a significant part of its business practice to the purchase and sale of businesses and business assets, with asset purchases and sales (and their associated tax attributes) being of significant interest to a number of our clients. We work on structuring corporate buy/sell and LLC operating agreements aimed at assisting in business continuity amidst possible buyout of investor/shareholder/member interests. Finally, we have developed expertise in environmental law and assisting clients to deal with Federal and New York regulatory agencies.