Steve Leimbergs Estate Planning Newsletters

(The following are posted with permissions)

Gordon Schaller & Maximizing 2012 Gifts: A New Concept for Procrastinators

The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to gift $5 million without gift or GST tax will close on December 31, 2012. As of January 1, 2013, the gift tax exclusion will revert to $1 million and the gift and estate tax rate will revert to 55%, unless Congress takes action.

Steve Breitstone: Lapsing 2012 Estate Planning Opportunities & Large Estates Holding Businesses and Real Estate

The Obama Administration?s proposals to eliminate the current favorable treatment of grantor trusts may, if enacted, put an end to much of estate planning as we know it for the wealthier client who owns a business or actively managed real estate. These types of assets are typically illiquid.? Moreover, these clients may have estates that are too large to plan for with straightforward annual exclusion gifts or even gifts of the current lifetime exemption of $5,120,000.

To plan for these clients, it is necessary to leverage the exemptions. Most leveraging transactions (such as installment sales to intentionally defective grantor trusts and grantor retained annuity trusts) depend in large part on the ability to transfer assets to a grantor trust without incurring an income tax at the time of such transfer