Estate Planning: Principles and Practice

This course will examine the principal tax and non-tax aspects of estate planning with an emphasis on the professional skills needed by an estate planner. Topics to be covered include legacy planning, the use of trusts, and generation-skipping planning; asset protection planning; how to protect the settlor’s intent while also building flexibility into the estate plan; planning for the surviving spouse, including marital trusts, credit shelter trusts, and portability; charitable planning, including the income tax and estate tax charitable deductions, and various types of charitable trusts and other charitable vehicles; techniques for making tax-efficient gifts, including annual exclusion gifts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, sales to defective grantor trusts, and qualified personal residence trusts; fiduciary income tax; planning for closely-held businesses; planning for retirement benefits; and ethical considerations in estate planning. There will be a fair amount of emphasis on tax issues.