Costly Pitfalls in Old Estate Planning Documents (Completed)

Best practices in estate planning have changed significantly over the past 20 years. Unfortunately, clients often avoid visits to their estate planning attorney particularly when they believe their estate plan reflects their current wishes. Even if the ultimate dispositive provisions remain the same, the method of transferring assets to loved ones can have drastically different estate and income tax consequences depending on the terms of the document.

In this course we will review many provisions that once were the gold standard in estate planning but that now have less than ideal tax consequences for the taxpayer. We will also analyze methods of reducing income tax when charitable beneficiaries are named in estate planning documents. A basic understanding of estate and fiduciary income tax will be helpful before taking this course.

Who Should Attend
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Topics Covered

• Review of the traditional language included in estate planning documents based on old estate and income tax rules
• Description of the unintended consequences old language can cause in the updated tax environment
• Illustration of the benefits that can be achieved by modifying estate planning documents to reflect the gold standard of today's planning environment
• Examples of how estate and income tax can be minimized by updating estate planning documents to reflect the current tax rules

Learning Objectives

• Describe the changes in the tax law that have occurred over the past 25 years
• Identify problematic estate planning strategies and language that will have unintended tax consequences upon the taxpayer's death
• Recognize the necessity of updating estate planning documents to reflect the new tax environment
• Recognize how to analyze the tax savings that can be achieved by modifying a taxpayer's estate plan
• Identify how to recommend estate planning techniques to maximize the benefits the current estate and income tax rules

Level
Basic

Instructional Method
Group: Internet-based

NASBA Field of Study
Taxes (2 hours)

Program Prerequisites
None

Advance Preparation
None