Thomas G. Opferman
Partner
Thomas Opferman is a member of SNR Denton's National Trusts and
Estates practice and served as its chair from 1989 to 2006. He has
extensive experience in estate and tax planning for wealthy
individuals and family businesses. He also has represented numerous
not-for-profit organizations with respect to charitable and
deferred giving programs and has counseled individual clients
regarding the tax and nontax implications of charitable giving.
Thomas has worked extensively with individual and corporate
fiduciaries in the settlement of decedents' estates and in the
distribution of testamentary and inter vivos trusts.
In the area of estate planning, he has assisted clients in
planning for the generation-skipping transfer tax, including
establishing lifetime and testamentary trusts and exercising powers
of appointment over exempt trusts. He has counseled U.S. citizens
and trusts with respect to alternatives for foreign investments and
the attendant U.S. income, gift, estate and generation-skipping
transfer tax consequences. He has also assisted clients in creating
grantor-retained annuity trusts and qualified personal residence
trusts. He has worked with clients establishing and operating
family partnerships and limited liability companies. He has
counseled senior executives of leading corporations regarding
alternatives for exercise and transfer of stock options. He has
also assisted families in establishing and operating family
offices. He has represented wealthy individuals and families in
negotiating and preparing premarital agreements. He has also
assisted clients in establishing irrevocable life insurance trusts
and advised them about second-to-die life insurance.
Thomas has advised charitable organizations with respect to
alternatives for present and deferred gifts, including charitable
trusts, gift annuities and remainder interests in personal
residences. He has worked with individual and not-for-profit
clients in drafting, funding and administering charitable remainder
and charitable lead trusts and maintaining pooled income funds. He
has also worked with wealthy families in establishing and operating
private foundations.
He advises individual and corporate fiduciaries with respect to
probate and nonprobate estate administration and post-mortem tax
planning, including advising fiduciaries with respect to closely
held business assets. He has experience with multistate estate
administration and representation of individual and corporate
trustees and executors in federal estate and gift tax audits and
various state estate and inheritance tax matters.
Thomas is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate
Counsel and a member of its Estate and Gift Tax Committee and
Charitable Planning and Exempt Organizations Committee. He is a
member of the editorial advisory board of Trusts &
Estates magazine and serves as co-chair of its Estate Planning
& Taxation Committee. Thomas is an adjunct professor at
Northwestern University School of Law, where he teaches estate
planning in the graduate tax program. He has served as an adjunct
professor in the graduate tax program at IIT Chicago-Kent College
of Law, where he taught estate planning for LL.M. candidates. He
previously served as a member of the board of directors of Bishop
Anderson Institute and a founding member and director of the
Heartland Literary Society.
Thomas currently is general counsel for Episcopal Charities and
Community Services (ECCS) and previously served as a trustee and
vice president of finance of ECCS. He also served as a trustee of
the Regenstein Foundation. Thomas serves on the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra Planned Giving Advisory Council and the Ravinia Festival
Association Planned Giving Advisory Committee. He previously served
on the Northwestern University Estate Planning Advisory Council and
The Art Institute of Chicago Gift Planning Advisory Committee. He
has served as a lecturer and author for the Practicing Law
Institute, the ALI-ABA, the Notre Dame Tax and Estate Planning
Institute, the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education,
the American Bankers Association National Graduate Trust School,
the Chicago-Kent Federal Tax Institute, the Illinois Bankers
Association Trust and Investment Management School, the National
CLE Conference on Estate Planning and other professional
organizations on the subjects of the generation-skipping transfer
tax, marital trust funding, income taxation of trusts and estates,
charitable giving and other subjects. He is a past chair of
Division A of the Federal Tax Committee of the Chicago Bar
Association and is active in the American Bar Association Section
of Taxation, Estate and Gift Tax Committee.
Organizations
- Adjunct professor, Northwestern University School of Law in
LL.M. tax program
- General counsel, Episcopal Charities and Community
Services
- Member, Ravinia Festival Association Planned Giving Advisory
Committee
- Member, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Planned Giving Advisory
Council
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