Recently, Congress passed the American Tax Relief Act of 2012,or “ATRA”. The Act affects only already existing provisions, but has manynew tax implications. Some of the provisions included in the act willpositively affect estate planning. One of the areas affected by the Act isthe maximum estate, gift and GST tax rate. The rate is now permanently set at40%, which occurs on taxable estate worth more than $5,250,000. Moreover,ATRA set the tax-exempted amount for decedents’ estates at $5.25 million. ATRAhas also given something for married couples to think about. The Act extendedTRA 2010’s ‘portability’ provision, permitting married couples to transfer unusedestate tax to the surviving spouse. ATRA has made many previous temporary provisionspermanent. However, the change from temporary to permanent can significantlychange estate-planning techniques.
See Lewis Saret, ATRA : An Unexpected Plus To Your Estate Planning –Part I, Forbes, Jun. 13, 2013.
Special thanks to Brian Cohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.
