Most employers provide a Non-Qualified Plan to extend income deferral opportunities to key employees. The advantages of these plans to the participant are:

• Pre-tax deferral of compensation.
• Opportunity to select from an investment menu and control risk.
• Payout prior to age 59.5 without penalty.
• Ability to capture lost matching 401(k) contributions.

The advantages these plans offer to an employer include:· Comparatively low cost benefit that is an industry standard and which studies indicate is highly appreciated by the majority of key employees.· Provides flexibility to meet specific objectives or situations.· Answers the Retirement Savings Challenge.

Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans
A Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (SERP) can serve as an extension of a company’s Qualified Defined Benefit Pension Plan. SERPs may also be initiated as a stand-alone benefit for one or more executives, to replace other retirement funds that may have been forfeited when leaving another company.

The use of Account Balance SERPs allows discretionary or performance-tied contributions to be made to the executive’s account, based on the executive‘s performance.The employer chooses who participates in the SERP, the level of benefits, the types of benefits, and the plan provisions. Participants’ benefits are subject to the employer’s creditors.

Under a SERP the employer and the employee enter into a contractual agreement where the employer will provide pre- and/or post-retirement benefits as a specified dollar amount or a benefit tied to a Qualified Pension Plan. The employer accrues the retirement benefit expense.

At retirement, the employer pays a lump sum or series of annual retirement benefit payments to the executive, taxed as ordinary income in the year it is received and is deductible to the employer in the same year. If the executive dies before retirement, the spousal payout is taxed as ordinary income and is deductible to the employer.

Estate Planning, Probate, and Trust Administration
Estate planning is the process whereby families develop a plan that ensures that the assets they have worked so hard to accumulate during their lifetime are protected at their death and distributed as they choose. Without proper planning, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or Colorado Department of Revenue may stand to “inherit” a large portion of the assets of many families.

Through an affiliated law firm we facilitate the creation of your estate plan to address your concerns about receiving proper medical treatment, minimizing estate tax, leaving money to charities that do important work, special needs situations, and transferring ownership of a family business in an orderly fashion. We excel in helping our clients choose the plan that best addresses their unique concerns and draft the documents to accomplish these ends.

Common aspects of estate planning include:

• Assisted living and advanced health care directives 
• Medical and Durable powers of attorney 
• Family, revocable, and irrevocable trusts
• Charitable giving plans and trusts
• Wills to work in conjunction with plans which will avoid probate
• Family limited partnerships and limited liability companies 
• Insurance planning and life insurance trusts 

We also provide comprehensive legal advice to our clients in the areas of:

• Home and asset protection planning 
• Co-ownership structures for family property
• Marital Agreements / “Pre-Nuptial Agreements” and “Post-Nuptial Agreements”
• Conservatorships and Guardianships
• Gifting Strategies and Family Loans
• Medicaid and Disability planning 
• Long term care planning