Orange County Chinese Estate Planning Lawyer

Orange County Chinese estate planning attorney, John L. Wong practices exclusively in the area of estate planning and represents several Chinese estate planning clients. John’s father, grew up speaking both Mandarin and Cantonese, as he was raised in both Hong Kong and mainland China before immigrating to the United States. While John was not born in China, he is very familiar with the Chinese culture and the traditional, and sometimes nontraditional family dynamics of the Chinese family. Unfortunately, John’s father, like many in the Chinese culture, did not discuss death, and did not have an estate plan. When John’s father passed away, John and his brother were left dealing with the long and expensive probate process in Orange County, California. Since then, John has made it a personal goal to discuss death with the Chinese community, to educate the Chinese community on the need for estate planning, and to assist Chinese estate planning clients with avoiding taxes and probate. John has become the go-to Chinese Estate Planning Attorney in Orange County, California.

Chinese Estate Planning Clients

With a large Chinese client base, John has experience working with the unique cultural issues that face many first generation Chinese-Americans, as well as second generation Chinese-Americans. As a Chinese-American, John has the unique ability to understand the Chinese culture and implement an estate plan that reflects the client’s wishes while building in future tax saving techniques within the confines of the US tax laws. While no two estate plans are the same, and every plan needs customization, John has the experience to guide you through each of these complex and difficult choices.

Chinese clients often ask how these estate plans will be enforced and are concerned that the estate plan will not be followed. John has experience not only drafting estate plans for Chinese families, he also has experience litigating these issues on behalf of Chinese family members. Through this experience, John has been able to guide his estate planning clients to create an estate plan that will create significant penalties to anyone that chooses to question or disobey the terms of the estate plan.

Estate Planning for Clients with Assets in China

Many of our clients own assets in both Orange County, California and in China. Depending on whether the client is a U.S. Citizen, resident alien or non-resident alien, we make sure that they pay the minimum amount of taxes possible in the United States with an understanding of the laws in China. Under Chinese law, the disposition of intangible assets such as Chinese bank accounts and securities of Chinese companies owned by a Orange County resident should be governed by California law and the disposition of real property in China owned by the Orange County resident should be governed by Chinese law. These issues, like most international tax issues can be complicated. For more information, contact John L. Wong, Orange County Estate Planning Attorney, and he will be happy to discuss these issues with you and your family.