Contact Information

500 Capitol Mall, 18th Floor

Sacramento, CA 95814

916.325.4515

ksilvester@mhalaw.com

Practice Focus

Tax & Estate Planning

Business Organization

Business Transactions

Charitable Giving

Trust Administration

Kent W. Silvester | Assistant Managing Shareholder

Professional Experience

Kent specializes in all facets of tax, business and estate planning for high net worth individuals. He designs and implements succession plans to transition ownership of family businesses and investments from one generation to another in a tax efficient manner, while addressing the personal concerns of each family.

Kent provides advice on how to minimize estate taxes, gift taxes, generation-skipping taxes, income taxes and property taxes. In order to implement these plans, Kent’s practice involves the formation and administration of trusts and business entities such as partnerships, limited liability companies and corporations as well as planning for charitable giving.

Kent represents clients in income tax, estate tax and gift tax audits and supervises the preparation of gift tax returns and estate tax returns. He also assists clients by applying his tax expertise to a wide variety of business transactions.

Kent joined McDonough in 1990 after working as a certified public accountant with a Big Four accounting firm, having been promoted to tax manager in just three years.

Representative Matters

Assisting parents in positioning family business for eventual sale to third party since children not involved in business. Creating gift structure which minimizes taxes and provides children with protection from creditors, including former spouses in the event of divorce.

Planning dynasty trust designed to continue for multiple generations.

Structuring plan for parents to transfer a portion of substantial real estate investment portfolio to children while minimizing estate and gift taxes. Prepared entity agreements to maintain family ownership of investments.

Prior Experience

Structured parents’ charitable gift via charitable lead trust which benefited charity and facilitated transfer of valuable asset to children with no gift tax liability.

Represented family in parents’ transfer of privately held business to children. Coordinated trust administration following husband’s death and installment payment of estate taxes. Represented family in purchase of interest of child who no longer wanted to participate in family business.

Structured parents’ transfer of multi-million dollar vacation home to children with no gift tax liability.

Presentations/Publications

Presenter, “Charitable Giving Without Trusts,” Financial Planning Association of Northern California (FPANC)

Presenter, “Charitable Lead Trusts,” Sutter Hospitals Foundation Board of Trustees

Presenter, “Sophisticated Estate Planning Techniques,” Sacramento Chapter California Society of CPAs

Presenter, “A Survey of Charitable Giving Techniques,” The State Bar of California

Co-Author, “The Family Partnership: Protecting One’s Assets, Relatively Speaking,” McDonough Quarterly Review, Estate Planning and Probate: A Special Report, Volume 8, Number 1

Co-Author, “The Family Partnership: Part Two,” McDonough Quarterly Review, Estate Planning and Probate, Volume 8, Number 2

Leadership Positions/Affiliations

Assistant Managing Shareholder, McDonough Holland & Allen PC

Chief Financial Officer, McDonough Holland & Allen PC

Past President, Sacramento Estate Planning Council

Trustee, Sutter Medical Center Foundation

Director, Capital Jazz Project

Past-Chair, Pass-Through Entities/Real Estate Committee – State Bar of California Taxation Section

Past-Chair, Young Tax Lawyers Committee – State Bar of California Taxation Section

Past-Chair, Sacramento County Bar Association, Young Tax Lawyers Committee

Member, California Society of Certified Public Accountants

Member, American Bar Association Taxation Section

Member, State Bar of California Taxation Section

MHALaw Search

Admitted to Practice

State Bar of California, 1986

Licensed as Certified Public Accountant, 1989

Education

University of the Pacific,

McGeorge School of Law

J.D., with Distinction, 1986

Order of the Coif

Dean’s Honor List

Traynor Society

California State University, Sacramento

B.S., Business Administration with concentration in Accounting, 1982

Dean’s Honor List

Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society