Zachary Arons advises ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families on domestic and international tax planning, wealth succession, and trust and estate matters. His work centers on helping clients make thoughtful decisions around complex portfolios that reflect both financial realities and personal priorities. He approaches each engagement holistically, aligning tax efficiency with long term family, business, and philanthropic goals.
Zachary’s experience includes drafting wills, trusts, and sophisticated estate plans with a focus on income, gift, estate, and generation skipping transfer tax considerations. He advises family offices on wealth management and tax matters and assists with the formation and ongoing administration of private trust companies. His practice also includes strategizing, drafting, and maintaining governing documents for closely held family businesses, as well as counseling clients on expatriation matters, including exit tax exposure, citizenship and green card issues, and the application of tax treaties.
What draws Zachary to his work is the people behind it. He places real value on conversation, listening carefully and translating complicated tax and estate issues into clear, usable guidance. Clients appreciate his ability to ask the right questions and make space for decisions that extend beyond numbers on a balance sheet. While he brings a strong command of technical analysis and planning detail, he never loses sight of the fact that successful outcomes depend on trust and understanding as much as structure.
Representative Experience
- Devised and executed cohesive and complementary core estate plans for multiple generations of a family with a collective net worth in excess of $80 million.
- Implemented a spousal lifetime access trust structure with an interposing family limited partnership for a technology entrepreneur with a net worth of approximately $500 million.
- Created an annual exclusion gift trust to promote wealth succession and tax efficiency for an ultra-high-net-worth married couple with young children.
- Assisted with a multi-billion-dollar merger of an oil company owned substantially through privately held companies and family trusts.
- Strategized a complex estate plan for a domestic family with extensive European real estate and corporate ownership interests.
- Established and maintained a U.S. private trust company structure for a business executive’s family, employing investment, discretionary distribution, and anti-money laundering compliance committees.
- Formed a family office structure for a private equity principal.
- Presented on estate planning considerations for green card holders at a multidisciplinary conference for legal and financial professionals in the private client space.