Estate Tax Offers New Structuring Opportunities

With the passage of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, many practitioners are now scrambling to determine how to best position  their clients’ estate planning structures and forms to take advantage of the new dynamic estate tax planning opportunities and challenges.

2011 Estate Tax Strategies, a new BNA Tax & Accounting webinar led by noted tax authors and commentators Alan Gassman and Christopher Denicolo on March 31, 2011, puts together charts, language and text to help practitioners mount the learning curve and move into client interaction and document and structure implementation.  A number of drafting approaches to this planning will be discussed, with sample clauses.

"This valuable analysis comes at a time when practitioners need to change client documents to assure that surviving spouses' heirs can choose between estate tax exemption and stepped up basis," said BNA Tax & Accounting Managing Editor Harry Pskowski.

The new $5.0 million exemption, together with a 35 percent tax rate, applies to estates of those individuals dying in 2011 and 2012, as well as to gifts and generation-skipping transfers made in those years. Then, in 2013, the pre-EGTRRA law will return, with a $1.0 million exclusion and a maximum 55 percent tax rate. This presentation will allow participants to focus on the opportunities offered for planners by these changes, and bring clarity where there has been much confusion.

Alan Gassman and colleague Christopher Denicolo will discuss several scenarios that families must now consider in order to preserve their wealth while taking into account the many possible outcomes that can result from future developments in the estate tax law.

The live webinar will provide participants with:

• A multi-item checklist outlining planning ideas for clients and their advisors to consider
• Estate and tax planning opportunities for clients with estates above or below the new $5,000,000 thresholds
• A working knowledge of the new rules, and how to work with them
• Deadlines for taking action and filing tax returns and important tax elections
• Clawback risk and why it should not prevent large 2011 and 2012 gifting
• How many favored past techniques will continue to apply in 2011 and 2012, but in different ways
• How dynasty trust planning will be different and more popular, with back up benefits for the donors
• The pros and cons of tax exemption portability in 2011 and 2012, and how to make credit shelter trust planning more flexible
• Why this is an opportune time to review estate plans

2011 Estate Tax Law Changes will take place March 31, 2011, from 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m., ET.  To register for this webinar and obtain further information about CLE and CPE credits, go to http://www.bnatax.com/2011-estate-tax-law-webinar/?open&cmpid=tmtxpr2011 or call 1-(800)-372-1033, menu Option 6, then Option 1. The per-site fee is $249.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Financial planning Estate planning
MORE FROM ACCOUNTING TODAY