Admitted to practice law in Georgia, North Carolina (inactive), and as a Solicitor in England & Wales (non-practising)

B.A., M.A., University of North Carolina; J.D., University of North Carolina School of Law; LL.M. in Estate Planning, University of Miami School of Law

29+ years in domestic and international tax planning, estate planning, and asset protection planning

Extensive experience with advanced trust and business entity structures, plaintiff lawyers and fee deferrals

Co-author with Jay Adkisson of Asset Protection: Concepts and Strategies for Protecting Your Wealth (McGraw-Hill, 2004)

Before finishing my undergraduate degree, I served as a paratrooper, sergeant and squad leader in the U.S. Army. I am a Gulf War veteran.

Trusts and estate planning for entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, and business owners

Cross-border tax and trust planning for U.S. and foreign persons, families, and companies, inbound and outbound, including pre-immigration and expatriation

Private trust companies and U.S. fiduciary structures for international families and foreign trustees

Asset protection planning, domestic and foreign

Contingent fee planning for plaintiff lawyers, law firms, and other professionals

Liquidity events, from pre-sale positioning through funding and implementation, including the insurance and investment execution

Technical support for CPAs, wealth managers, family offices, and other counsel

A foreign trust company or private bank whose U.S.-beneficiary trusts need a domestic decision-maker. The ownership layer can stay offshore. The decision layer can't, if the trust is going to be treated as domestic. I set up Wyoming and Nevada private trust companies that hold every substantial decision, so the Control Test is satisfied on the facts rather than on a memo.

A family moving to the United States who has eighteen months before they stop being a non-resident. Pre-immigration planning is a timing problem before it's a tax problem. Drop-off trusts, basis step-up elections, and the sequencing of gifts all have to happen before the residency start date, and almost none of it can be fixed afterward.

A U.S. citizen relocating abroad who wants to know what the move actually costs. Elective residence visas, treaty tie-breakers, foreign pension characterization, and the exit tax if expatriation is on the table. The answer is frequently that the move works, but the entity structure underneath it doesn't -- and that's the part nobody has looked at.

A married couple where one spouse isn't a U.S. citizen. The unlimited marital deduction doesn't apply. The planning that works for everyone else produces an estate tax bill here, and the fix has to be built into the documents rather than bolted on by the executor.

A founder who is twenty-four to thirty-six months from a nine-figure exit. This is the window where planning still works. Puerto Rico Act 60 residency, installment sales to grantor trusts, and pre-sale gifts all depend on being early. I also tell people when a residency plan isn't likely to survive contact with an IRS examiner.

An owner selling shares in a foreign operating company. Sec. 1248 recharacterization, Sec. 960 deemed-paid credits, GILTI and Subpart F inclusions, and state nonconformity that can undo the federal result entirely if the seller is sitting in California. The federal answer and the state answer are different questions and they get answered separately.

A profitable closely held business carrying exposure it hasn't priced. Worker classification across a sales floor, compensation arrangements that don't match the documents, entity elections made years ago for reasons nobody remembers. The work here is triage first: what has to be corrected, what should be restructured, and what is fine and can be left alone.

A contingency-fee attorney with a large fee closing this year. Deferral has to be arranged before the case settles, not after. Periodic payment arrangements, assignment companies in Switzerland and Barbados, preferred-and-common partnership structures, and split-dollar arrangements funding an insurance trust -- each fits a different fee profile, and the difference between them is worth more than the difference between deferring and not.

A lawyer crossing over from the fee side of the table to the capital side. The trial lawyer who starts funding other firms' cases. The attorney who takes an ownership position in the carrier or the assignment company instead of just using it. The firm principals who stand up an offshore or Puerto Rico services entity that bills back into their own litigation enterprise. The tax profile changes completely on that move: ordinary fee income becomes entity income, and the questions become export-services qualification and whether there is real presence on the island, transfer pricing between the firm and the affiliate, personal holding company and accumulated earnings exposure sitting inside the new entity, and whether the minority owners have a passive foreign investment company problem. Most people make this move using the structure their fee-deferral advisor drew for them, and it doesn't hold up on the other side.

A professional or business owner whose personal balance sheet is exposed to unknown creditors and estate taxation. Beneficiary-defective trusts, installment sales to grantor trusts, limited liability companies, and multi-tier trustee oversight built so the asset protection and the estate tax protection survives a challenge. I co-wrote the McGraw-Hill book on asset protection with Jay Adkisson in 2004. Much of what gets sold as asset protection today is a variation on something they described then, often executed poorly.

A family office, wealth manager, or CPA who needs a technical partner and not a competitor. I take the piece of the engagement that requires a tax lawyer and hands the relationship back. I have built long-running referral relationships on exactly that basis, and I coordinate directly with the client's existing advisors through implementation -- documents signed, wires moved, elections filed.

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Viewing this site or contacting RiserLaw LLC does not create an attorney–client relationship.

No legal services are provided until a written engagement agreement is signed.

Past results and experience do not guarantee future outcomes.

RiserLaw LLC is a law firm based in Georgia.

Chris Riser is licensed to practice law in Georgia, North Carolina (inactive) and as a Solicitor in England & Wales (non-practising).

Available to work with clients nationwide, subject to applicable law and bar rules.