Article on Estate Tax Planning

Joseph Price Jr. (Executive Vice President, BryanMark Financial Group) and Sarah L. King (Associate, Missouri) have recently published an article entitled, Putting The Increased Estate to Work, 26 Prob. & Prop. 40 (May/June 2012). The introduction to their article is provided below:

The portability provisions and the increased federal transfer tax exemptions of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Authorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 (“Tax Act”), Pub. L. No. 111-312, 124 Stat. 3296, have dramatically increased the value of the estate that a client can give away during the life or own or control at death without incurring federal transfer tax, at least until the end of 2012. This article discusses five ideas for using the new increase in a client’s transfer-tax protected estate (the “Increased Estate”). One of these ideas is intended to ultimately reduce a client’s transfer tax, but the others are intended to serve different purposes (creditor protection, for example) for clients for whom the Increased Estate makes transfer tax planning less important.