Samuel M. DiPietro

Senior Associate
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Spencer Fane attorney Samuel DiPietro

Overview

Samuel collaborates with families and their advisors to create customized estate plans that consider the specific needs of each family, ensuring the protection and seamless transfer of wealth.

Samuel has extensive experience in crafting estate plans tailored to the unique requirements of modern families. Some illustrative examples of these plans encompass provisions for children with special needs, strategies for bequeathing wealth to beneficiaries grappling with addiction, designing trusts that safeguard against potential creditors or divorce, planning for blended families, and structuring inheritances for non-US citizens with respect to property in the U.S.

Samuel, a certified public accountant with two advanced degrees in taxation, has successfully implemented plans that reduce income, gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer taxes in the context of succession planning for individuals and privately held businesses.

Credentials

Education

  • Northwestern University School of Law (LLM), with honors
  • Northwestern University School of Law (J.D.), cum laude
  • Arizona State University – W. P. Carey School of Business (M.Tax)
  • Arizona State University – W. P. Carey School of Business (B.S.), summa cum laude

Bar Admissions

  • Arizona
  • Illinois

  • Works with high net worth families on comprehensive gifting strategies to mitigate and, in some instances, eliminate estate tax exposure.
  • Counsels families regarding business succession planning and asset protection strategies.
  • Designs estate plans to incorporate and address non-tax considerations oftentimes faced by clients (e.g., second marriages with children from prior marriages, children with special needs, beneficiaries suffering from addictions, non-U.S. citizen spouses, etc.).
  • Implements estate plans to avoid probate and efficiently pass wealth to future generations.
  • Advises clients with respect to charitable gifting.
  • Aligns income tax planning with estate planning to maximize the efficient growth and transfer of clients’ wealth (e.g., structuring sales of family businesses, community property planning, qualified small business stock planning, etc.).

  • Grand Canyon University, Adjunct Professor (FIN-440 | Estate Planning & Special Topics)

  • The Tax Lawyer (an ABA-published journal), Editorial Board Member, 2019 – 2020

  • Financial Planning Association of Greater Phoenix, Professional Development Committee Member
  • Central Arizona Estate Planning Council, Member
  • Arizona State Board of Accountancy, Certified Public Accountant

  • “Planning as the Sunsets: A Discussion of the Strategies Advisors and Clients Should Consider Prior to the 2026 Sunset of the Federal Estate Tax Exemption,” Financial Planning Association, Mid-Year Retreat, 2024
  • “Basic Asset Protection and Privacy Planning; Financial Planning Association of Greater Phoenix,” 2023
  • “Joint CE Event with East Valley Estate Planning Council and Financial Planning Association of Greater Phoenix,” 2022, 2023
  • “Because of FDII, Every Global Supply Chain Should Consider a U.S. C Corporation,” TaxNotes, 2021