Coordinated
estate,tax,and
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Massachusetts planning for estates over $2 million.

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Since 1997~$1.5B AUM as of 8/12/2026SEC-Registered RIACFP® Fiduciary7 Advisors

Six Coordination Gaps

Six places where Massachusetts estate plans may fall short

Gaps that may come up in Massachusetts estate plans. They can involve legal documents, taxes, and investments, so they often call for several professionals.

01

The Unfunded Trust

A trust that was never funded may not work as it was drafted.

TitlingHow each account and property is titled may determine whether a trust holds it.
02

No Massachusetts Portability

A surviving spouse may not be able to use the first spouse's unused Massachusetts amount.

NoneMassachusetts describes no portability election (Mass. DOR Estate Tax Guide, updated April 23, 2026). The 2026 federal basic exclusion is $15M (IRS).
03

The RMD Timing Question

Required minimum distributions may raise taxable income in some years.

73 to 75Age when RMDs generally begin, depending on birth year (IRS; Congress.gov CRS on SECURE 2.0). Confirm yours with your CPA.
04

Massachusetts Estate Tax Exposure

Whether the Massachusetts estate tax applies depends on the size of the estate.

$82,400Illustrative tax on a $3M estate before any planning, using the DOR credit-table method for 2026. Your CPA calculates any actual tax.
05

The Millionaire Surtax

A 4% surtax applies to taxable income above $1,107,750 for tax year 2026.

4%Surtax on Massachusetts taxable income above the threshold (Mass. DOR, updated June 1, 2026).
06

Disconnected Professionals

Your attorney, CPA, and advisor each have a separate role.

3Separate professionals with separate roles: attorney, CPA, and advisor.

An Educational Estimate

What might the Massachusetts estate tax look like? Get an illustrative number in 60 seconds.

Set your estate's approximate value (home, retirement accounts, investments, life insurance) and see an illustrative Massachusetts estate tax estimate under 2026 law. Your CPA calculates any actual tax.

See the Full Breakdown →
Estimated MA estate tax, before planning$82,400

Illustrative estimate under M.G.L. c. 65C (2026), assuming all property is in Massachusetts and no deductions. Results are estimates only and are not guaranteed. Not tax advice. Your CPA calculates any actual tax. The full calculator includes an illustrative married-couple scenario.

How Coordination May Help

Six gaps. One coordination hub.

Every service runs through one CFP® who also manages the portfolio. Your attorney and CPA stay yours; Michael helps coordinate the three plans.

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Fiduciary · Fee-Based · Coordination-Focused
1
Discovery

Estate & Tax Information Review

Where your estate documents, investment accounts, and tax information stand today, and where they may not line up.

2
Summary

A Written Summary of Open Questions

Your accounts, titling, and beneficiaries, with questions for your attorney and CPA, who advise on legal and tax decisions.

3
Execution

Implementation & Introductions

Introductions to independent Massachusetts estate attorneys and CPAs if you ask. You choose and engage them, and the advisor helps track follow-up.

4
Ongoing

Monitoring & Maintenance

Family circumstances and tax rules change, so a plan may need periodic review with your professionals.

Tax-Efficient Wealth Management

Investment management that considers the estate and tax picture

Investment decisions can interact with taxes and estate planning, so they are reviewed alongside the work of your CPA and attorney. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal.

  • Asset Location Review

    Considering which account types hold which investments. The effect depends on your accounts, your tax situation, and the law, and it may not lower taxes in every year.

  • Roth Conversion Review

    Reviewing with your CPA whether a conversion may fit a given year, considering tax brackets, IRMAA tiers, and the surtax threshold. A conversion adds taxable income in the year it occurs and may not suit every household.

  • Capital Gains Review

    Considering when gains may be recognized and how cost basis may affect taxes, in coordination with your CPA. Results depend on market conditions and tax law.

  • Charitable and Gifting Questions

    Organizing questions about charitable giving or gifts of appreciated assets for your attorney and CPA to evaluate. These choices may involve cost, irrevocability, and tax rules that change.

Individual situations vary. This information is educational, does not constitute tax, legal, or investment advice, and is not a recommendation of any strategy. Tax rules change. Consult your CPA and attorney regarding your specific circumstances.

Where investments, taxes, and estate questions connect

These educational pages explain how investment decisions, retirement income, and estate planning questions may connect. They are starting points for conversations with your CPA and attorney.

Explore tax-efficient wealth management →

See how a financial advisor fits into estate planning →

Try the illustrative estate tax calculator →

About Michael

See the entire financial picture. Coordinate every part.

Michael Cammarata is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® practitioner and an owner and Managing Partner of MSA Financial, LLC. For more than two decades, he has helped families, business owners, and executives make informed decisions about their wealth, particularly when investment management, retirement, taxes, and estate planning intersect.

For many clients, the relationship begins with a specific concern: Massachusetts estate-tax exposure, an outdated or unfunded trust, a business transition, a concentrated investment position, or questions about retirement income. Michael's goal is to look beyond the immediate question and determine how each decision affects the client's complete financial picture.

Preserve Your Estate reflects an important part of Michael's practice, but not its full scope. His work includes comprehensive financial planning coordinated with your attorney and CPA, investment management, retirement-income planning, Roth conversion and RMD planning, capital gains planning, charitable planning, trust-funding and beneficiary reviews, business-owner succession planning, and executive compensation planning.

Households with several professionals may find that no single person is responsible for connecting their recommendations or tracking open items between their financial advisor, estate attorney, and CPA.

Michael is not an estate attorney or CPA. He serves as the central point of coordination, working alongside each client's existing professionals, or helping identify qualified independent professionals when needed, to organize information about the estate documents, tax planning, investment portfolio, and retirement plan. He does not draft legal documents, provide legal or tax advice, or prepare tax returns.

As both a financial advisor and an owner of his own business, Michael understands that financial decisions can affect more than an account balance, including a family's lifestyle, employees, business partners, and the legacy an owner may want to leave.

Michael's practice is a boutique advisory relationship within MSA Financial, the independent advisory firm he owns and leads alongside his partners. Established in 1997, MSA Financial is an SEC-registered investment adviser managing approximately $1.5 billion in client assets as of August 12, 2026. SEC registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training.

Michael's objective is to help clients see the entire financial picture and organize the questions they may want to take to their other professionals over time.

CFP®Managing Partner and OwnerFiduciaryFee-BasedRIA · MSA Financial, LLC
Schedule a Coordination Conversation →

Michael Cammarata, CFP®

Managing Partner and Owner · MSA Financial, LLC

Michael coordinates closely with clients' CPAs and estate attorneys. When a client needs a professional, he can help identify qualified independent advisors; clients choose and engage those professionals directly.

Learn

Deep-dive guides and current thinking on Massachusetts estate & tax planning

Educational guides in plain language.

Estate Structure

The Marital Deduction Trust & A/B Trust Planning

How credit shelter and QTIP trusts may be discussed when considering both spouses' Massachusetts exemptions, with an illustration for an $8M estate.

12 min readRead Guide →Estate Execution

Trust Funding & Asset Titling: A Step Families May Overlook

A trust that is not funded may not work as drafted. An educational overview of the asset-by-asset follow-through to review with your attorney and CPA.

Free PDF guideGet the Guide →Retirement Income

Retirement Income Planning for Massachusetts Households

How withdrawal decisions, Social Security timing, and account distributions may connect with your tax and estate-planning conversations.

Retirement planning serviceExplore Retirement Planning →Massachusetts Estate Planning

What Does Estate Planning in Massachusetts Involve?

Review the estate-tax threshold, trust funding, beneficiary coordination, and the planning questions that may need attorney and CPA input.

Massachusetts estate planning guideRead the Massachusetts Estate Planning Guide →

Comparing advisors? Read what a fiduciary financial advisor is and how it differs from other advisors. Unfamiliar with the trust labels? Read the main types of trusts Massachusetts families review. Thinking about gifts? Read how the federal lifetime gift tax exemption differs from the Massachusetts estate tax. These guides are educational only.

Serving Massachusetts

Three locations. One cohesive planning team.

Offices in Braintree (South Shore headquarters), Sandwich (Cape Cod & the Islands), and Framingham (MetroWest), serving families across Massachusetts.

  • Braintree25 Braintree Hill Park, Suite 303, Braintree, MA 02184(781) 843-3500 · Main-office receptionist
  • Sandwich90 Route 6A, Unit 4A, Sandwich, MA 02563(781) 843-3500 · Main-office receptionist
  • FraminghamBy appointment, Framingham, MA 01701(781) 843-3500 · Main-office receptionist

Is This the Right Fit?

This practice is built for a specific client, and it's not for everyone

A boutique practice by design: a small number of complex Massachusetts estates, handled in depth.

Schedule a Coordination Conversation →Get the Free Guide

$2M+ in net investable assets

Planning questions can become more complex above the Massachusetts estate tax threshold, which is where this practice focuses.

Massachusetts resident or estate owner

The practice focuses on Massachusetts estate tax considerations under M.G.L. c. 65C and local planning questions. Michael is not an attorney or CPA.

In or approaching the decade before retirement

Estate and tax decisions can become harder to change as retirement approaches, so many households review them in the decade beforehand.

Seeking an integrated, coordinated approach

If you're looking for someone to manage investments in isolation, this is probably not the right practice. And that's fine.

Comfortable with a boutique, high-touch firm

A limited number of clients, by design: depth over volume.

Ready for a fiduciary conversation

Michael is a fiduciary and fee-based. A CFP® whose role is coordinating among your estate plan, tax return, and portfolio information. He does not draft legal documents or prepare tax returns.

Your Planning Readiness

How coordinated is your current estate plan?

Check each item that's confirmed and in place. Your score updates as you go.

0of 10

Start checking the boxes

As you check each item, you will see which items are confirmed and which may be worth reviewing with your professionals. This checklist is educational and is not advice.

Schedule a Coordination Conversation

The Coordination Conversation

Already have an advisor, an attorney, and a CPA? A coordination conversation may help organize how their work fits together.

A focused 45-minute conversation at no cost and with no obligation. Here is what it may cover.

  1. A look at your estate tax picture.

    A general, illustrative look at how the Massachusetts estate tax may apply, using the Department of Revenue's published method. Your CPA calculates any actual tax.

  2. How your trust and accounts are titled.

    Whether deeds, accounts, and beneficiary designations appear to match your documents, with questions to take to your attorney.

  3. Roth conversion and distribution questions.

    Questions to bring to your CPA about Roth conversions, IRMAA surcharges, and the Massachusetts surtax.

  4. A written list of open questions.

    Items to take to your attorney and CPA. The list is educational and is not legal, tax, or investment advice.

Michael Cammarata, CFP®, is an Investment Adviser Representative of MSA Financial, LLC (CRD #107768), a Registered Investment Adviser. This is a complimentary educational conversation, not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any security.

Schedule a Coordination Conversation

For Massachusetts families with $2M+ in investable assets.

By submitting this form, you agree to be contacted by Michael Cammarata, CFP®, at MSA Financial, LLC. Your information is never sold or shared.

Common Questions

Massachusetts estate & tax planning, answered plainly

Yes. For Massachusetts residents dying on or after January 1, 2023, the Department of Revenue requires a return when the gross estate plus adjusted taxable gifts exceeds $2,000,000, and allows a credit of up to $99,600. A household below the federal exclusion may still have a Massachusetts estate tax question. Source: Massachusetts Department of Revenue, Estate Tax Guide (updated April 23, 2026), M.G.L. c. 65C. Verified October 28, 2026. Rules may change.

Approximately $82,400 under 2026 law, before any planning (illustrative). The tax is computed on a graduated scale and reduced by the $99,600 credit. Actual tax depends on deductions, elections, and the law at the date of death, and your CPA calculates it. Model an illustrative estimate here.

Massachusetts describes no portability election, so a surviving spouse generally cannot use a deceased spouse's unused $2,000,000 Massachusetts amount (Department of Revenue, Estate Tax Guide). Some couples discuss credit shelter (A/B) trusts with their estate attorney. These trusts may involve cost, irrevocability, added administration, and rules that change, and they may not work as drafted unless they are funded. Whether any structure fits is a question for your attorney and CPA.

It may. The Department of Revenue's Estate Tax Guide lists insurance among the types of intangible property that can be part of a decedent's estate, and treats life insurance not payable to the estate as nonprobate property. Whether a particular policy counts, and whether any trust is appropriate, is a question for your attorney and CPA.

No. Michael Cammarata is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® and Managing Partner at MSA Financial, LLC. He is not an attorney or CPA. He does not draft legal documents, provide legal or tax advice, or prepare tax returns. His role is coordination: organizing your portfolio, tax, and estate information and working alongside independent Massachusetts estate attorneys and CPAs.

A 4% surtax on Massachusetts taxable income above an inflation-adjusted threshold, which is $1,107,750 for tax year 2026 (Massachusetts Department of Revenue, page updated June 1, 2026). It applies in addition to regular income tax. A business sale, a large capital gain, or a Roth conversion may raise taxable income in a given year. Your CPA advises on the tax effects.

The practice focuses on Massachusetts households with $2 million or more in investable assets. If you are close to that level, a conversation can help determine whether the practice fits your circumstances.

Not Ready to Talk? Start Here

The 2026 Massachusetts Pre-Retiree's Guide to Estate & Tax Planning

Twelve pages covering six planning topics Massachusetts families may want to review, explained plainly. Free, by email. Educational only.

Get the Free Guide →
Calculate Your MA Estate Tax →