Patrick J. Saccogna

Practices

• Personal & Succession Planning

Professional Experience

Patrick is a partner in the Personal and Succession Planning practice group. He focuses his practice on counseling individuals, families, and businesses in a wide range of personal, charitable, business and succession planning matters, including designing, drafting and implementing planning tools, structures, strategies, and financial transactions such as wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, insurance trusts, split-interest trusts, partnerships, limited liability companies, foundations and other complex entities and transactions, multi-generational wealth transfer planning, income, estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax planning, retirement planning, administering trusts, estates and other entities, and complying with federal, state, and local tax reporting requirements. Prior to joining the firm in 2002, Patrick was a Senior Manager in the Private Client Services Group, Tax Division, of the Cleveland, Ohio office of Arthur Andersen LLP. Patrick is a Certified Public Accountant (Ohio).

Education

• Case Western Reserve University School of Law, LL.M., 1999, Taxation
• Case Western Reserve University School of Law, J.D., 1990, magna cum laude, Order of the Coif
• Kent State University, B.B.A., 1987, summa cum laude, Beta Gamma Sigma; Beta Alpha Psi

• Implemented "Round 2" grantor trust income tax free installment sale transactions to facilitate family patriarch's transfer of his additional interests in a manufacturing S corporation to dynastic trusts for the primary benefit of his children and heirs apparent to the business by utilizing substantial existing trust equity without the necessity of the grantor's making any additional taxable gift or utilizing any more of his GST exemption.
• Defended and negotiated the settlement of a two and one-half year multiple tax year federal gift tax audit of matriarch with gift tax exposure exceeding $1 million and facts involving numerous intrafamily gifts and taxable installment sales of general and limited partner interests in a family limited partnership and other assets, and the matriarch's taxable installment sale and leaseback of a fractional interest in her primary residence.
• Designed numerous GST exempt dynasty and posterity trusts to hold voting control of family owned businesses and other assets and to assure continuity of management of assets and facilitate estate, gift, and GST tax valuation objectives.
• Advised on the income, gift, estate, and GST tax consequences of a partnership arrangement to settle management issues over family investments held in a QTIP trust and allow payment of estate tax on a Graegin type installment basis.  Advised on the determination of trust accounting income with respect to interests held by the QTIP trust in partnerships and limited liability companies.
• Implemented a variety of family office planning arrangements, family partnerships, stock recapitalizations, intra family installment sales to grantor trusts, and all types of Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs), and other estate freeze techniques to accomplish a variety of family business, wealth transfer, and investment objectives.
• Formulated a number of Charitable Remainder Trusts and Charitable Lead Trusts to facilitate charitable and business succession planning objectives.  Provided counsel on the pre-funding split and merger of strategically located real estate in connection with the funding and operation of a "FLIP" NIMCRUT type of Charitable Remainder Trust.  Experience with all types of other charitable giving arrangements.
• Counseled fiduciary on the grantor's repurchase of GRAT-owned shares of stock in a rapidly appreciating company thereby locking in a substantial transfer tax-free remainder distribution to family matriarch's children. Assisted the fiduciary in negotiating with the grantor on the grantor's borrowing and repayment of loans in connection with a series of complicated transactions involving operating S corporation's shares held by a series of GRATs.
• Provide advice to a large family office with respect to myriad of multi-generational estate, gift, GST, and income tax and business succession planning issues.
• Quarterbacked several "bailout" transactions involving defective Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts, including the design and implementation of several trust-to-trust grantor trust income tax free sales transactions.

• "Installment Sales to Grantor Trusts: Prop-Ups for Down Times" · Journal of Taxation of Investments, Summer 2009
• "Ohio's Taxing Fight Against the Florida Flight: What's Ahead" · Probate Law Journal of Ohio, May/June 2007
• "Rock 'N' Rollover ... Introducing the Charitable IRA Rollover" · Cleveland Bar Journal, December 2006
• "It's No Longer 'Out of Sight, Out of Mind' in Ohio: House Bill 73, A First Step Toward Relaxing Ohio's Residency Requirements While Strengthening Ohio's Nonprofits and Bolstering Ohio's Coffers" · Probate Law Journal of Ohio, July/August 2005
• "The CARE Act: Does Congress Care Enough?" · Leave A Legacy News, Summer 2005

• "Portability: Now it's for Real", Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, February 2013
• "Charitable Trust Strategies in the Current Market", Northern Ohio Planned Giving Council, February 2013
• "Portability: A Portal into the Future or a Pitfall for the Unwary?", Boy Scouts of America 7th Annual Estate Planning Seminar, September 2012
• "Monthly Tax Update", The Estate Planning Council of Cleveland, (Monthly); September 2008 to June 2011
• "Estate Planning in Uncertain Times: Estate Tax is Repealed - Now What?", Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, January 2010
• "Planning Opportunities in a Down Economy", PNC/National City Bank CLE Seminar, December 2009
• "Wealth Transfer Opportunities in a Low Interest, Low Market Value Environment", Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association's 52nd Annual Tax Institute, November 2009
• "Federal Update", Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association's 36th Annual Estate Planning Institute, October 2009
• "Installment Sales to Grantor Trusts: Prop-Ups for Down Times", Ohio ACTEC Fellows, May 2009
• "Unintentionally Defective Sales to Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts: Prop-Ups for Down Times", Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, March 2009
• "Estate Planning", National Association of Black Accountants, November 2008
• "Studies in Sales to Defective Grantor Trusts", Boy Scouts of America 3rd Annual Estate Planning Seminar, September 2008
• "Gifts of Fine and Decorative Art, Antiques, Collectibles, and Other Tangible Personal Property", Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, June 2008
• "Touring the Universe of Charitable Split-Interest Gifts: Charitable Remainder Trusts, Charitable Lead Trusts, and Charitable Gift Annuities", Northern Ohio Planned Giving Council's 17th Annual Planned Giving Day, May 2008
• "To Be or Not to Be ... A Grantor Trust", The Estate Planning Council of Cleveland, March 2007
• "Did They Change the Rules Again?", Northern Ohio Planned Giving Council, March 2007
• Chair, Estate Planning, Probate, and Trust Law Section of the Cleveland Bar Association's CLE seminar titled, "Hot Button' Topics on Trusts", June 2007
• "Legislative Update", Northern Ohio Planned Giving Council, 2005-2007 (Monthly)
• "Bailouts from Sales to Defective Grantor Trusts", Cleveland Bar Association's 31st Annual Estate Planning Institute, October 2004

• Selected for inclusion in Super Lawyers in Ohio Super Lawyers Magazine 2008-2013
• Fellow, American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC)