Kevin C. Lane

Kevin C. Lane advises high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients on estate planning strategies that balance tax efficiency, asset protection and family goals.

He designs tailored plans that optimize wealth transfer and asset protection for his clients while preserving flexibility for future generations.  

Both a lawyer and certified public accountant, Kevin excels in identifying and implementing tax-advantaged estate planning and wealth transfer strategies. He prepares comprehensive estate plans, including wills, trusts, lifetime gift programs and asset protection structures. His work also includes family office advisory, business succession planning, pre-transaction planning for business sales, corporate recapitalizations, premarital agreements, buy-sell agreements, private annuities, and family limited partnerships. Additionally, he guides executors, guardians and trustees through probate and trust administration. 

Kevin has helped clients achieve significant tax savings through strategic planning, such as moving substantial assets outside the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax system before a major business sale. He emphasizes clear communication, often providing visual summaries of proposed plans to ensure they align with his clients’ objectives before drafting.  

Prior to practicing law, Kevin spent more than four years as a tax consultant and auditor with Arthur Andersen & Co. That experience gave him firsthand insight into complex financial structures and compliance requirements. 

Experience

• Helped a family move ownership of its 100-year-old, family-owned operating company valued at over $500 million outside the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax system, ensuring tax-free transfer to future generations. 
• Handled the pre-transaction planning for a business that was ultimately sold for $1.3 billion. Through creative planning, Kevin was able to move over $900 million from the estate and gift tax system. Utilizing carefully structured trust documents tailored to the family's unique circumstances, Kevin was able to save the family more than $360 million in estate taxes. 
• Assisted a family in transferring more than $100 million outside the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax system and now serves as a director of the family’s private trust company.  
• Resolved a $5 million estate tax dispute for a widow whose late husband’s poorly designed estate plan (prepared by another firm) failed to address tax apportionment issues.  Kevin settled the matter with no tax liability for his client. 
• Designed trusts to acquire valuable business interests from terminating trusts on an income tax-free basis. Through creative planning, Kevin created trusts that were able to acquire those interests and permanently remove the assets from the estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax system. The creative plan saved the collective family hundreds of millions of dollars in estate taxes that otherwise would have been imposed on the business interests.