Keith Schiller, Attorney

Dedication to Excellence

Mr. Schiller is dedicated to excellence, for his profession and career. He is routinely requested by clients and other professionals to help solve complex problems, achieve major tax savings, and advise an extensive range of issues. Keith lectures on estate planning to professionals approximately 12 days each year, teaching to over 1,700 professionals annually. He has authored 10 course texts, written numerous articles, and assisted hundreds of clients and professionals with their thorniest problems. Keith is among a select few attorneys in California to be dually certified in two specialties by the California State Bar. He received the California CPA Education Foundation's award for Outstanding Teaching Materials in 2001, from the curriculum of over 150 courses and 600 events offered by that acclaimed organization.

In addition to legal expertise, Mr. Schiller has extensive strategic planning, marketing and planning experience which can affect the growth and organization of the businesses of clients and professional firms.  His advice is regularly sought by accountants, attorneys, and clients throughout California.

Mr. Schiller's focus with estate planning began at Boalt Hall School of Law, where he selected several estate planning electives. Having begun practice in 1974 with his father's firm, Keith received an entre to a clientele a generation his senior. This exposed Keith to a range of issues and net worth of client that is not normally occasioned by a young attorney. His commitment to estate planning excellence has endured through the years. Keith has lectured professionally in California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, British Columbia, Washington, and Hawaii.

Practical Experience of Extensive Breadth and Depth

Mr. Schiller's practice predominantly relates to estate planning (including business formation and succession planning), trust and estate administration, and compliance with complex issues. Keith has retained many of his clients through decades of practice. With his long-term clients he is requested as well to advise on a wide array of business and personal planning considerations of extensive and strategic quality, including business sales and re-organization, compensation planning, long-term planning, and issues related to the dynamics of families.

From 1998-2001, Keith was a member of The Executive Committee (TEC), an international organization of business owners, meeting monthly to help solve concerns with business direction and personal life quality. As a result, Keith enjoys a diverse exposure to issues and planning considerations beyond the breadth of a typical law practice. These include consultation on employment and marketing plans, gift planning, development of charitable foundations, creation of partnerships and limited liability companies, compensation planning, securing retirement, and the development of long-term personal and business objectives.

Mr. Schiller's estate planning includes the full array of services required by the successful investor or business owner, as well as assisting beneficiaries, trustees, and executors with disputes over inheritances, administration, and family business. These services include living trusts and wills; irrevocable trusts; charitable trusts; tax-exempt organizations; foundations; family partnerships, limited liability companies and corporations; gift planning; 'intentionally defective' grantor trusts; GRATS; business succession planning; trust and estate administration; installment sales; GST transfer tax planning and avoidance; estate planning and compliance; accountings; post-death estate planning; and disputes over bequests and inheritances.

Representatives business planning and transaction services include business purchases and sales; deferred compensation; organization of corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies; strategic planning; retirement planning and security for transaction of the entrepreneur's or executive's interest in the family or closely-held business; stock options; and, stock sales.

Mr. Schiller has also assisted businesses and individuals with significant real estate transactions, having handled over 200 tax-deferred exchanges; leases; and real estate purchases and sales.

Client-Focused Approach

Mr. Schiller strives to problem solve, and achieve the objectives desired by the client. This necessitates listening to the client, focusing upon what the client says and evaluating these desires in the unique context presented by each client. As a result, planning is tailored to the client, not then fitted to meet a pre-conceived notion.

Clients are encouraged to place non-tax considerations first, so that the tax plan is molded to conform to the client's non-tax wishes. He also acknowledges the role of family dynamics, the physiology of money, and the importance of blending extensive considerations to achieve business or estate plans that achieve positive results for the client. (See, Prozac and Estate Planning for Families.)He encourages clients and professionals to develop a team approach to planning. He regularly consults with other professionals, recognizing the clients are best served with complex issues when the best thinking of the client's team lend their perspective to a given plan.

He blends academic interest with practical applications and experience. He has been a member of the PaineWebber Attorney Network since 1997.

Unique Insight to the IRS Audit and Dispute Process

Apart from extensive business and estate planning services, Keith has represented taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service for many years. He has benefited as well from gathering important insight to the audit and dispute resolution process, as well as advocacy in Appeals and Tax Court.

During the past several years, Keith has taught the highly popular course, Hot Topics of the Federal Estate Tax Return, an all-day continuing education course for accountants and attorneys. He has been co-teaching this course with IRS Estate Tax Attorneys or Appeals Officers, providing the attendees a provocative point-counterpoint to a variety of controversial issues as well as tips on how to achieve the best result for the client. As part of that experience, Keith conducted a survey of views of IRS Estate Tax Attorneys in California, the results of which were published in the February edition of the CEB, Estate Planning & California Probate Reporter (Feb., 2000) and in Shannon Pratt's Judges & Lawyers Business Valuation.

Keith regularly represents clients in their tax disputes. In addition, he consults with other professionals, primarily with CPA's, in the review of estate tax returns and gift tax returns that will be filed with the IRS. This typically achieves tax savings for the client significantly in excess of the investment in the consultation. Schiller Law Group can also prepare estate and gift tax returns. On other occasions, Keith will directly represent the clients in audit, appeals or Tax Court. Keith successfully represented the taxpayers in Brocato v. Comr. TC Memo. 1999-424, a complex Estate Tax case granting an 11% blockage discount plus a 20% fractional interest discount for apartment house properties in the Marina District of San Francisco.  See article on Leaf Hoppers and the Prudent Investor Act, (July, 2007)

Commitment to the Community

Keith was born and raised in San Francisco, California, residing throughout his adult life in Alamo, California. Beginning as an undergraduate at UCLA (where he was Student Body President and founder of the UCLA Legal Aide Service), Keith has been an effective contributor to a variety of community causes, including:

• Chairman of the Yosemite License Plate Committee, during the course of which Keith lobbied the passage for the Yosemite License Plate, the largest selling license plate in California. As chairman, Keith also coordinated the state-wide marketing campaign for the sale of the plate. The Yosemite License Plate has raised in excess of $20 million for preservation of Yosemite National Park and California conservation
• Founding Chairman of the East Bay Chapter of the Yosemite Fund, a group that began with many of the friend with whom Keith visits Yosemite. This chapter raises over $200,000 for the restoration of the Happy Isles area in Yosemite Valley, and provided vital support for the Yosemite License Plate campaign.
• Serving as Chairman of the Anti-Defamation League's Law and Public Policy Committee, a committee which submitted amicus curie briefs in significant cases to combat discrimination.
• Fund-raiser for the Stone Valley Middle School PTA, bringing to that school, where his son attended, the opportunity to host a premier of The Swan Princess , an animated full-length motion picture, in 1993. They even raised over $25,000 for technology equipment.
• Little League Manager

Keith resides with his wife, Jane, who together have raised 3 children.