Insights on Family Office

ArentFox Schiff is proud to be a sponsor of the 63rd Annual Hawaii Tax Institute Conference, where partners Cindy Brittain, Brian Janowsky, and Christine Quigley, along with Senior Associate Xiang Qu and Associate Jiahua Wang, will be presenting.

ArentFox Schiff is hosting and sponsoring the NYCPA Private Wealth Conference in New York on December 10. AFS speakers include Kevin Matz, Tracy McLaughlin, Brittany Sokoloff, Patricia Pileggi and Vanessa Meeks.

Partner and Family Office Industry Group Co-Leader Kevin Matz and Partner Sarah Kerr Severson recently were quoted in a CNBC article discussing the “Lender” model, a tax strategy that may allow qualifying family offices operating as a trade or business to deduct investment expenses.

AFS Partner Sara Judge will moderate a panel at the 2026 NADC Fall Conference, taking place October 11 - 13, 2026 in Nashville, Tennessee.

AFS Partner and Family Office Co-Leader Kevin Matz will present at ACTEC’s 2026 Mid-Atlantic Regional Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland September 26, 2026.

AFS partner and Family Office Co-Leader Kevin Matz will present at the Trusts & Estates and Elder Law & Special Needs Section 2026 Joint Fall Meeting hosted by the New York State Bar Association on September 24, 2026.

Partner and Co-Leader of the Family Office Industry group, Kevin Matz, discussed the often-overlooked impact of state estate taxes and the importance of domicile planning for high-net-worth individuals.

AFS Counsel Fredrick Weber will present at the Greater North Shore Estate & Financial Planning Council’s breakfast meeting on September 16, 2026, in Skokie, Illinois.

AFS Partner Lauren Wolven will co-present in a webinar for the NAEPC’s AEP and EPLS Forum on August 31, 2026.

Family offices depend on a web of trusted advisors — lawyers, accountants, trustees, investment managers, and others — sharing sensitive information under carefully maintained protections. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are quickly becoming part of that web.

Family Office Services Industry Co-Leader Kevin Matz was featured by Crain Currency on the tax issues that should be top of mind for family offices in the last half of 2026.

ArentFox Schiff is pleased to announce that 125 attorneys have been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America 2027, with two attorneys highlighted as “Lawyers of the Year” and 36 attorneys listed as “Ones to Watch.”

New York City’s Pied-à-Terre (PAT) surcharge, pursuant to New York State Tax Law Article 30-C, officially took effect on July 1, 2026. The PAT is an annual property tax aimed at individuals who own a residential property in New York City that is not their primary residence. The annual surcharge applies retroactively to January 1, 2026, and sunsets on June 30, 2031, unless extended by the New York State Legislature.

Family Offices Industry Co-Leader Kevin Matz was quoted on the value of trust protectors in both revocable and irrevocable trust plans and can be useful even for responsible family members.

California family offices with clients at or near the $1 billion net worth threshold should be monitoring Proposition 40, the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, which has qualified for the November 3 ballot and could impose a one-time tax of up to 5% on the net worth of certain California residents if approved by voters.

ArentFox Schiff Partners Kevin Matz, Brian Janowsky, and Tracy McLaughlin will present “Qualified Opportunity Zones and Estate Planning After OBBBA” during a Strafford webinar on July 30, 2026.

AFS Partner and Family Office Co-Chair Kevin Matz analyzes the IRS’s newly issued transfer tax safe harbor for contributions to Trump accounts and examines its implications for gift and generation-skipping transfer tax reporting in a recent article for TaxStringer.

Private Clients, Trusts & Estates Partner Sarah Kerr Severson was quoted in Family Wealth Report on the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) notetaking tools for confidentiality and attorney-client privilege.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Notice 2026-40 on June 18, announcing that proposed regulations regarding qualified opportunity zones (QOZs) under §§ 1400Z-1 and 1400Z-2 of the Internal Revenue Code are forthcoming and providing long-anticipated transitional guidance relating to qualifying investments thereunder.

ArentFox Schiff Partner Kevin Matz will be presenting at the NYU Summer Tax Institute Advanced Trusts and Estates Conference in New York City on July 24, 2026.

ArentFox Schiff Partner Lauren Wolven will be a panelist at the STEP Chicago Conference on July 16, 2026.

Family Office Industry Co-Leader Kevin Matz was featured on the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) most recent guidance regarding Trump account contributions that resolves most concerns about potentially burdensome gift tax reporting requirements.

AFS Partner Lauren Wolven will be a panelist at the WTTW | WFMT Annual Professional Advisor Seminar, sponsored by Northern Trust, in Chicago on June 17, 2026.

ArentFox Schiff Partners Todd Angkatavanich and Kevin Matz will be presenting at the 2026 Summer Symposium & Social hosted by the San Francisco Estate Planning Council on June 12, 2026.

AFS Partner Todd Angkatavanich presented at the STEP New York program, “Structuring and Integration of the New Family Office: Redefining Advisory Relationships,” in New York on June 9, 2026.