Once Removed Episode 19: The Step-Transaction Doctrine and the Case of Smaldino
Once Removed Episode 18: The Reciprocal Trust Doctrine
Charitable Planning With Guest Stephanie Hood: Navigating Complex Rules and Traps for the Unwary
Once Removed Episode 16: Gift and Estate Tax, Inflation Adjustments for 2024
Once Removed Episode 17: Annual Gifting to Individuals: Options, Opportunities and Pitfalls
Once Removed Episode 12: SLATs and the Case of McKim vs. McKim
Once Removed Episode 11: Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts, or SLATs
Once Removed Episode 10: Trustee Removal and Case Update on Leo Kahn Revocable Trust
(A)ESOP's Fables - The Income and Estate Tax-Free ESOP
The Renoir Spelling Bee
Taking the Sting Out of Death Taxes with Dylan Metzner, Jones & Keller
RETURN TO FOREVER - What Game Shall We Play Today?
To Give or Not to Give: Considerations for Year-End Gifting
INTRODUCING MALTA SPLIT DOLLAR
THE PAPER CHASE
With a Little Help from My Friends
The Greatest Gift: Your Individual + Family Estate Plan
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law on July 4, 2025, is a sweeping piece of legislation spanning nearly 1,000 pages. It includes significant changes to federal estate and income tax laws that will affect...more
December 2024 Interest Rates for GRATs, Sales to Defective Grantor Trusts, Intra-Family Loans and Split-Interest Charitable Trusts - The December Section 7520 rate for use in estate planning techniques such as CRTs, CLTs,...more
November 2024 AFRs and 7520 Rate - The November 2024 Section 7520 rate for use with estate planning techniques such as CRTs, CLTs, QPRTs and GRATs is 4.40%, which was the same as the October 2024 rate...more
The TCJA doubled the lifetime exclusion and GST tax exemption. This exclusion amount, adjusted for inflation, is now $13.61 million and is expected to be approximately $13.99 million in 2025. However, in 2026, the amount will...more
If you are in the process of long-term estate planning or updating an existing estate plan, the process for passing assets and accounts to your heirs is about to become much more difficult and expensive. Presently, each...more
Earlier this week the White House released its Fiscal Year 2025 Budget. Of course, the federal government has not yet adopted a budget for the Fiscal Year 2024 even as we approach that year’s halfway mark. But I digress. The...more
This is The End- I have dreaded the year end for as long as I can remember. As a teenager and then as a young adult I associated the final quarter of the year, and especially the period beginning on Thanksgiving and...more
“Déjà vu All Over Again”- The White House last week released the President’s Budget for the Fiscal Year 2023. The Budget is ambitious, but its “investments,” we are told, “are more than paid for with tax reforms focused on...more
Our annual estate and tax planning newsletter discusses certain concepts and techniques that should be considered in 2022 by our clients and friends in California. Perhaps the most important recent development was the failure...more
The House Ways and Means Committee recently released its plan to pay for President Biden's proposed Build Back Better Act. Many of the changes to the Internal Revenue Code proposed by that plan would directly impact gift and...more
House Democrats recently released additional legislative proposals that, if passed, would affect several commonly used estate planning techniques. Among those proposals are three that would significantly impact some of the...more
Advance planning in light of the proposed tax law changes included in the For the 99.5 Percent Act, STEP Act and the Biden Administration’s Green Book. Proposed tax law changes introduced this year provide valuable insight...more
In 2020, COVID-19, the US presidential election, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the TCJA), and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (the CARES ACT) dominated the planning landscape....more
September 2019 Interest Rates for GRATs, Sales to Defective Grantor Trusts, Intra-Family Loans and Split-Interest Charitable Trusts - The September Section 7520 rate for use with estate planning techniques such as CRTs,...more
June Interest Rates for GRATs, Sales to Defective Grantor Trusts, Intra-family Loans and Split Interest Charitable Trusts - The June § 7520 rate for use with estate planning techniques such as CRTs, CLTs, QPRTs and GRATs...more
The fourth quarter of 2017 concludes a unique year in the planning arena. With the new administration and a Republican-led Congress in power, both taxpayers and tax professionals have kept a close eye on the potential for tax...more
In 2016, we continued to experience a period of relative stability in our federal transfer tax system and have been able to plan without expecting imminent significant changes to the system. Under the American Taxpayer Relief...more
In this final installment in our three-part series, we discuss the planning technique known as Charitable Lead Annuity Trusts (CLATs). Like Intra-Family Loans and Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs) described in previous...more
I. INTRODUCTION - This outline is a selective and evolving review of the history of the modern federal estate tax. It originated during the attempts to repeal the estate tax in President Clinton’s second term and...more
June Interest Rates for GRATs, Sales to Defective Grantor Trusts, Intra-Family Loans and Split Interest Charitable Trusts - The June § 7520 rate for use with estate planning techniques such as CRTs, CLTs, QPRTs and...more