Doane & Doane, P.A.

Focus and practice areas

Tax and estate planning make up the work of this Palm Beach Gardens firm. Randell C. Doane and Rebecca G. Doane started it in 2003. It works with families, individuals and businesses across Southeast Florida.

The firm does two connected kinds of work. One is planning how a person's property passes to heirs or charities. The other is handling the tax questions that come with that transfer. The firm keeps these together, which fits the way estate and tax rules tend to overlap.

Estate planning and the documents behind it

The firm prepares wills and several kinds of trusts, including revocable trusts, irrevocable trusts, charitable trusts and insurance trusts. A will takes effect through probate, while a trust can hold and pass assets outside that court process. The mix of revocable and irrevocable trusts gives clients choices that differ on control and tax treatment.

In my opinion, keeping that range of trusts alongside partnership and foundation work points to clients who hold assets in more than one form. As a reviewer, I read the document list as the standard set an estate planning firm keeps ready for that kind of client.

Planning for incapacity

Powers of attorney and health care surrogate designations take effect if a client loses the ability to decide for themselves. A HIPAA release lets named people receive medical information from providers. Setting these up early keeps a family out of court when it needs to act on someone's behalf.

Structures for family assets and giving

Charitable trusts and private foundations suit clients who want to direct money toward causes during life or after death. Family limited partnerships and family holding companies let relatives own and pass business or investment assets as a group. These structures carry their own tax and reporting rules, which ties them back to the tax side of the firm.

Tax and IRS matters

The firm's tax work covers income and estate tax planning, tax return preparation, and federal and Florida tax compliance. Florida charges no personal state income tax, so much of the planning centers on federal returns and on estate and gift questions. When a dispute arises, the firm represents clients in IRS controversies and before the United States Tax Court.

Tax Court hears a taxpayer's challenge to an IRS determination, and it lets the taxpayer contest the amount before paying it. Estate tax planning often runs next to the trust and gift work, since the timing of transfers changes what a family owes. Keeping return preparation and dispute work in one office means the people who file can also defend the filing.

Probate, guardianship and elder care

The firm administers estates and trusts after a death, including fiduciary accounting for the person who manages them. Fiduciary accounting records what a personal representative or trustee received, spent and paid out, and it gives the court and the beneficiaries a way to check the numbers. Probate administration runs through a county court, where a personal representative collects assets, settles debts and distributes what is left under the will or state law.

Guardianship comes into play when a court decides a person cannot manage their own affairs and appoints someone to act for them. A guardian may handle the person's finances, their personal care, or both, depending on what the court orders. Elder law overlaps with this, since older clients often face capacity questions and long-term care costs at the same time.

The firm handles Medicaid eligibility assessments, long-term care planning, retirement and life insurance planning, and asset management. Florida ties Medicaid for long-term care to income and asset limits, so an application calls for careful documentation of a person's finances. Planning ahead of a nursing home stay can affect whether someone qualifies, which is where the eligibility assessment comes in. The firm also assists with the application itself.

The team and where the firm works

Randell C. Doane is a founding partner. He is board certified in wills, trusts and estates by the Florida Bar Board of Legal Specialization and Education, and he has practiced estate planning, probate and taxation law since 1975. Board certification in Florida asks a lawyer to meet standards for experience, peer review and a written examination in the field.

Rebecca G. Doane founded the firm in 2003. Before that, she spent many years as a senior equity shareholder at a local law firm. The site names six more attorneys on the team: H. Bryan Doane, Joanne H. Rogers, Jeremy Soffler, Sebastian J. DiMaio, Samantha X. Malanche and Alexander Perez. The firm also counts CPAs, paralegals, legal assistants and support staff on its team, which suits work that blends legal and financial questions.

The firm keeps offices in Palm Beach Gardens and Stuart. It serves Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties across Southeast Florida. The Stuart office gives the firm a base for clients on the Treasure Coast as well as the Palm Beach area.

How the services connect during a matter

The firm's service list supports a process that can continue after the initial planning documents are signed. Tax return preparation and federal or Florida compliance may follow tax planning. If the IRS later challenges a position, the firm also handles the resulting controversy. This reviewer sees practical value in that continuity because the same office has access to the planning choices and related filing work.

A similar sequence appears in the estate and trust work. The firm prepares the governing documents and later accepts probate or trust administration matters. Fiduciary accounting adds a financial recordkeeping component during administration. These are separate assignments, but the listed scope allows a client or fiduciary to return to the firm when responsibility shifts from creating a plan to carrying it out.

The elder care services also cover more than preliminary advice. The firm performs Medicaid eligibility assessments and provides application assistance. Its related work includes long-term care planning and asset management, along with retirement and life insurance planning. Taken together, those services indicate that the office can examine eligibility questions in the context of the client's wider financial arrangements. The record does not describe a fixed service package, so directory users should ask which parts apply to their circumstances.

Palm Beach Gardens office details

The firm's legal name is Doane & Doane, P.A. Its Palm Beach Gardens office is at 2979 PGA Boulevard. The directory record lists 561-656-0200 and 888-403-3843 as contact numbers, while the firm's website is https://www.doaneanddoane.com/. These details give prospective clients a specific contact point for the Palm Beach Gardens location and a direct source for current firm information.

Rebecca G. Doane holds the title of founding partner, matching Randell C. Doane's stated role. That title adds useful context to her earlier experience as a senior equity shareholder and her part in establishing the firm. The remaining attorneys are identified by name in the record, although it provides no individual titles or biographies for them.