Beth Cohn

Beth is a shareholder at Jaburg Wilk and has been practicing law for more than three decades. She chairs the firm’s Estate Planning and Business Law Department. As both a Tax Specialist certified by the State Bar of Arizona – Arizona Board of Legal Specialization and a Certified Public Accountant, she has a unique expertise in assisting her clients with their estate planning as well as closely held businesses. She has assisted hundreds of families – including ones with substantial assets – with their estate needs ranging from simple estate plans to complex multi-generational gifting plans.

Her expertise and wide range of experience in structuring business entities and succession plans allows her clients to take advantage of tax and business opportunities, as well as protecting the individual business owner’s assets from the reach of creditors. She assists families, closely held businesses’ owners, and individuals by providing succession planning, business planning and estate planning. Whether trusts, wills, powers of attorneys, living wills or healthcare directives, Beth has the skills to help clients preserve the wealth they have created to benefit themselves, their family, and succeeding generations. She has also assisted in formation of (501(c)(3)) non-profits and assisted clients with charitable gifting.

Beth has represented clients from the start-up phase of their business to growing into multi-million dollar companies. These are longtime clients and Beth has been an integral part of that growth. She has assisted them with mergers, acquisitions and sales, real estate transactions, entity formation to maximize tax advantages, stock sales, leases, and like-kind exchanges. Representative transactions include:

• Family partnership owned 1,500 acres in West Phoenix and sold its property for development as a large master planned community.
• Numerous sales and purchases of businesses or interests in entities including sale of corporate stock or membership interests in limited liability companies.
• Mergers and dissolution of entities and tax free reorganizations of closely held businesses.
• Development of large entertainment and destination sites in the U.S. & Canada.
• Real estate and business lending transactions.
• Brick and mortar company that developed Internet businesses and attendant licensing arrangements.

She has appeared on various television programs to discuss estate planning topics, gifting strategies and other effective estate planning techniques. She authored Charitable Gift Planning, which appeared in the Arizona Attorney and has spoken locally on a number of estate planning topics.

Professional Experience

• Board Certified Tax Specialist
• Certified Public Accountant
• Expertise in business and real estate transactions and tax planning for businesses and their owners
• Represents clients from the start-up phase of their business to growing to have multiple entities: lease negotiations and documentation, complex transactions of like-kind exchanges, stock sales, real estate development, and formation of numerous entities
• Clients include contractors and construction companies, real estate developers, real estate companies, trucking companies, physicians, and insurance agencies, many of whom she has represented for more than 20 years
• TV commentator on business, tax planning, and estate planning topics, including the use of family limited partnerships and limited liability companies, gifting strategies and other effective estate-planning techniques

Case Highlights

Nurturing a profitable long-term relationship. For 25 years Beth represented a family that owned some 1,500 developable acres in West Phoenix. The complex estate plan included two limited partnerships and a gifting program, as well as debt needing to be renegotiated. Beth helped restructure the partnerships and sell the property to a developer, resulting in one of the largest real estate developments in Phoenix.

Helping a builder grow. Beth represented a partnership that started by building one spec home in the early 1980s. But the client continued to expand and became a significant homebuilder in Scottsdale and, later, in California and New Mexico, with 17 different corporations and LLCs. Her extensive services included business planning, estate planning, and succession planning for the owner.