Margaret S. Ng advises clients in various family wealth and tax matters, which includes estate and gift planning. Throughout her career, Margaret has prepared estate plans and coordinated administrations of trusts with values ranging from a few million to $200 million. High-net-worth clients rely on her as family counsel on various transactional and litigation matters.

Margaret also brings more than a decade of experience advising clients on business and real estate tax issues. She frequently represents clients in connection with fund formations, solar tax equity partnerships, California real property tax issues, capital gains issues, and 1031 and 1033 tax-deferred exchanges. Margaret also has a proven record of successfully appealing property tax assessments across Southern California.

With an in-depth understanding of business and real estate tax issues and the changing estate tax environment, Margaret builds integrated estate plans that account for clients’ business concerns today while preserving wealth for one and even two generations ahead.

Bar Admissions

• California
• New York

Education
LL.M., New York University School of Law (2006)
J.D., University of North Carolina School of Law (2005)
B.A., Duke University (2001)

Significant Accomplishments
Coordinated administrations of trusts with values ranging from a few million to $200 million.

Represented U.S. beneficiaries in the buyout of their interests in a billion-dollar estate.

Acted as tax counsel to sponsors of solar energy tax equity partnerships in connection with various capital raises, including the equity and debt raise of over $60 million.

Represented estate planning clients to negotiate 42-acre ground lease for the development of a major mixed-use project.

Advised institutional investors of a $160 million agricultural fund on possible unrelated business taxable income and debt-financed income.

Negotiated and drafted operating agreements and tax appendices in connection with real estate joint ventures, syndicated mobile home park partnerships, pharmaceutical start-up companies and agricultural funds including the joint venture development of a $350 million office building.

Represented a publicly-held multinational company and successfully challenged the reassessment of its Huntington Beach plant arising from a synthetic lease transaction, reversing the reassessed value of $39 million to the original assessed value of $19 million.

Challenged the reassessment of a 93-unit apartment complex in San Diego County arising from a non-pro rata trust distribution, reducing the reassessed value from $21 million to $12.5 million.

Challenged the reassessment of a leasehold interest in Los Angeles County resulting from the recordation of a ground sublease assignment, reversing the reassessed value of $24.6 million to the original assessed value of $7.9 million.

Advised client on the assessor’s valuation methods for a 240-unit apartment complex situated on a long-term ground lease.

Represented a majority investor to negotiate tenants-in-common documentation for a $61 million 1031 exchange in Atlanta, Georgia.

Advised client on the tax implications of the condemnation of a $52 million high-rise office building in connection with the Los Angeles County purple line subway extension.

Professional Associations

• State Bar of California, Tax and Trust & Estate Section, Member
• State Bar of New York, Member
• Orange County Bar of California, Tax and Trust & Estate Section, Member
• ProVisors, Member

"The Freeze Partnership: An Estate Tax Technique For Real Estate and Other Appreciated or Leveraged Assets," Family Wealth Planning Alert (August 2021)