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Michael P. Vito

Partner
Vice Chair, Trusts & Estates

Washington, D.C.
T: +1 202.753.3749 F: +1 973.422.2941 mvito@lowenstein.com
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A sophisticated planner to high-net-worth individuals, fiduciaries, family offices, and foundations, Michael P. Vito has wide-ranging experience in tax law, high-net-worth estate planning, estate and trust administration, and philanthropy spanning more than two decades across multiple jurisdictions. He guides his clients through the administration and preservation of assets in ways that best protect their legacies through prudent business succession planning, multigenerational plans, and charitable giving.

With a keen focus on federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes and fiduciary income tax planning, Mike counsels clients on the most effective techniques for the protection, management, and transfer of wealth, including through such vehicles as irrevocable life insurance trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, and spousal lifetime access trusts. He designs and implements planning structures to provide robust, multigenerational governance for families with growing trust networks. For philanthropically inclined clients, Mike provides advice on charitable gifts, private foundations, split-interest charitable trusts, excise taxes, grant-making procedures and agreements, and nonprofit governance.

Mike also advises fiduciaries on the fulfillment of their duties related to managing an estate or trust, including issues such as estate and inheritance tax returns, fiduciary accountings, concentrated position management, prudent investor act delegation, GST effective date trusts, fiduciary transitions, decanting, distribution, and wind-up strategies.

After working with Lowenstein for nearly 20 years, Mike moved to Washington, D.C., to join the high-net-worth family office practice group at an Am Law 50 firm. Beyond estate planning and trustee services, he provided innovative offerings such as living estate plan audits and financial benchmarking of advanced planning techniques. During 2020, Mike was also a regular author of the Finseca Washington Report Marketplace, a national monthly newsletter published for a large life insurance industry trade association, and his reports addressed advanced planning concepts specifically targeted to the financial environment created in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. He later rejoined Lowenstein Sandler in Washington in 2021.

Mike is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a member of the Washington, D.C. Estate Planning Council, and a past chair of Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association. He has been recognized in the Trusts & Estates Law section of Best Lawyers since 2015 and is admitted to practice in New York, New Jersey, District of Columbia, and Virginia.

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No aspect of these advertisements has been approved by the highest court of any state.

Education

  • Tulane University Law School (J.D. 1998), magna cum laude; Order of the Coif; notes & comments editor, Tulane Law Review

    Tulane University (B.A. 1996), cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa

Affiliations

  • Fellow, American College of Trust and Estate Counsel
    • Estate and Gift Tax Committee
    • Fiduciary Income Tax Committee
    • New Fellows Steering Committee (Past)
  • Washington, D.C. Estate Planning Council
    • Programs Committee
  • New Jersey State Bar Association
    • Past Chair, Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Section
    • Board of Consultors, Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Section
  • Trustee, The Nicholson Foundation
  • Past Trustee, Hyacinth AIDS Foundation (2012-2018)

Admissions

  • New York
  • New Jersey
  • District of Columbia
  • Virginia
  • U.S. Tax Court
  • U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey

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