Article On American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 In Utah

John Spencer Treu  (Pace University – Lubin School of Business; New York University School of Law) recently published an article entitled, What the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 and Portability Mean to Utah Estate Planners, Utah Bar Journal 27.1 (2014): 20-22. Provided below is an abstract of the article:

Congress avoided the so-called fiscal cliff with the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 and, in so doing, implemented a number of important tax provisions that affect estate planners for estates of all sizes. The act made several key estate tax provisions permanent including fixing the exclusion amount and tax rates and, most importantly, it made the concept of portability permanent. Portability enables surviving spouse’s to utilize the unused unified credit of their decedent spouse, a strategy that historically required the use of a credit shelter trust. This article also discusses additional ways that portability affects estates large and small and how estate planners may use credit shelter trusts under the current estate tax regime with portability.