David Allen Charous

As an estate planning attorney, David consults with individuals regarding their estate planning and estate administration needs, including business succession planning, leveraged gift giving, philanthropic goals and the structuring of estate planning documents. He has extensive experience – including more than 16 years as a practicing attorney – with tax compliance issues affecting trusts and estates and the preparation of both simple and complex federal estate and gift tax returns, fiduciary income tax returns, and various postmortem tax issues.
Among his accomplishments, David:

• Used a little-known provision in the Internal Revenue Code to help a family avoid the loss of a family farm due to the imposition of federal and state estate taxes. David helped structure a payment plan that not only allowed the farm to remain in the family, but helped the family avoid further indebtedness that may have resulted from procuring further financing to pay the estate taxes.

• Through careful research of the IRS regulations, David restructured the payout terms of a decedent’s IRA that was left to his surviving spouse under a defective beneficiary designation. Through David’s assistance, the surviving spouse was allowed to rollover the money and defer income taxes, rather than pay significant income taxes as a result of the defective beneficiary designation.

• Administered both smaller and larger estates ensuring proper accounting methods, distributions, tax compliance and income tax planning.

• Employed estate planning techniques such as gift giving, charitable planned giving, family limited partnerships, life insurance programs and trusts, to save clients from the imposition of unnecessary federal and state estate taxes.

In addition to having established his own law practice, David was the former Director of Estate Planning for the accounting and consulting firm of Frost Ruttenberg & Rothblatt (FR&R), a 130+ member firm located in Deerfield, Illinois. He is a graduate of the accounting program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (one of the highest regarded accounting schools in the United States). In addition to being a CPA, David is a licensed attorney and received his Master’s in Law (LL.M. in taxation) degree at DePaul University College of Law. David is a former speaker for the Illinois CPA Society and a former chairman of the Chicago Bar Association's Estate Planning Committee for the Young Lawyer's Division. Currently, David is a member of the Chicago Bar Association's Probate Practice Committee, Estate Planning and Trust Law Committee, and Federal Taxation Committee. He is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Illinois CPA Society, the North Shore Estate Planning Council, the Northwest Suburban Bar Association Estate Planning Committee, the Lake County, Illinois, Estate Planning Council, and the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys. David is also a member of the Skokie Chamber of Commerce and the Wilmette Chamber of Commerce.