41st Annual Trusts and Estates Seminar 2022

This outline covers all the past year’s legislation, cases, regulations, revenue rulings and procedures, and selected private letter rulings and proposed legislation regarding the income, estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax laws of importance to estate planning.

If your client has special needs, or has a loved one with special needs, traditional estate planning goals may not be sufficient. The complexity of care often required by a person with special needs creates unique planning challenges. Legally based planning tools must be properly applied to safeguard the person’s eligibility for public benefits and to supplement those benefits to improve his/her quality of life. A pooled special needs trust (PSNT) is an effective option for individuals or families considering a special needs trust.  This presentation will discuss the law governing PSNTs, its benefits and complexities.

This presentation will cover two separate but equally relevant topics in estate planning today. Recent changes that accelerate post-death minimum distributions from IRAs have effectively killed the “stretch IRA.” All estate plans and beneficiary designations for clients with substantial retirement plan assets should be reviewed and possibly modified, especially for clients intending to name a trust beneficiary. The first part of this presentation will provide a review of the new rules and key concepts for the non-specialist practitioner. The second part of the presentation will discuss the most advantageous estate planning techniques for a high-interest-rate environment and those techniques to avoid as interest rates climb higher.