New Issues in Estate Planning 2004
What You Will Learn
Estate Planning: What’s New for Practitioners (90 minutes)
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Faculty: Jeffrey N. Pennell, Virginia F. Coleman, Charles D. Fox, IV
Recent Tax Court decisions, Internal Revenue Code changes, HIPAA regulations, and other developments make it essential for you to keep on top of the law affecting wealth transfer taxation and advanced estate planning. This advanced 90-minute session will give you a concise, practical update on traditional wealth transfer tax and related topics, plus developments in such areas as the health privacy aspects of HIPAA, including its impact on health care powers and incapacity determination provisions; retirement benefits, including separate share accounts; the Uniform trust Code reformation provision §2036 debate; life insurance "life settlements"; "joint settler trusts" (and related) developments; representing same sex couples; and the use of charitable deductions under §642 (c).
Family Limited Partnerships after Strangi (75 minutes)
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Faculty: Mitchell M. Gans
Family limited partnerships are a widely used state planning tool. In a series of recent decisions, however, the Tax Court has repeatedly attacked these partnerships. Most recently, in the sweeping Strangi decision, the court used an unconventional approach to subject to estate tax a seemingly properly structured and conducted partnership, thereby posing a series threat to new and existing FLP’s. This 75-minute discussion will analyze the Tax Court’s methodology in its latest decisions involving FLP’s, and outline the steps that must be taken when creating new partnerships and rearranging existing ones in light of Strangi.
Opportunities for Trusts under the Final §643 Regulations (75 minutes)
Thursday, July 1, 2004
Faculty: Ronald D. Aucutt
In final regulations under §643 of the Internal Revenue Code, published in the last days of 2003, the Treasury Department has fundamentally changed the way trusts may determine "income" for purposes of distributions to beneficiaries and for purposes of the qualification of trusts for special treatment as martial deduction trusts, as S corporation shareholders, and the like. These regulations provide much greater flexibility in the administration of old trusts to accommodate the trends of prudent investing, and they provide more options in the design of new trusts. Although the scope of the new rules is broad, however, it is not universal, and there are still pitfalls to be identified and avoided. This 75-minue program will examine both opportunities and pitfalls under the new regulations, including principal-income adjustments under the Revised Uniform Principal and Income Act, conversions to and creations of private unitrusts, changes anticipated in state trust statutes, migration of trusts to other jurisdictions, preservation of GST tax "grandfathering," and allocations of capital gains to distributable net income (DNI).
Participants will have the opportunity to present their questions to the faculty during the last 15 minutes of each seminar.
Planning Chairs
Jeffrey N. Pennell is the Richard H. Clark Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta. A graduate of Northwestern University School of Law, he is a Member of the American Law Institute and an Adviser for its Restatement of the Law (Third) of Property, a former member of the Council of the Real Property, Probate & Trust Law Section of the American Bar Association, an Academic Fellow and Former Regent of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and an Academician of The International Academy of Estate and Trust Law. He has written articles and institute chapters, a casebook on the Income Taxation of Trusts, Estates, Grantors and Beneficiaries (West 1987), a Wealth Transfer Tax casebook (West 1997, with Kahn and Waggoner), the Tax Management Portfolios on Estate Tax Apportionment (BNA 2001) and the Marital Deduction (BNA 1996), and he was Editor-in-Chief of the American Bar Association's Real Property, Probate & Trust Journal (1987-1989). He is the successor author of Casner & Pennell on Estate Planning (Aspen), on which he is producing the annual supplements and has just finished the Sixth Edition, and he is writing an Estate Planning casebook (for West).
Faculty
Virginia F. Coleman is a member of the law firm Ropes & Gray, where she specializes in estate planning and fiduciary income taxation. Ms. Coleman is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a member and past chairperson of its Employee Benefits Committee and a member of its Estate and Gift Tax and International Estate Planning committees. She is also an academician of the International Academy of Estate and trust Law, a member of the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law, and Taxation sections of the American Bar Association, and a member of the American Law Institute. She is a frequent lecturer on estate planning topics.
Charles D. Fox, IV is a member of the law firm Schiff Hardin LLP, where he works on matters involving planning for families with closely held businesses, including ownership succession issue; the use of family limited partnerships, limited liability companies, and other techniques to transfer wealth at significantly reduced transfer tax costs; and counseling families on the appropriate uses of family offices. Mr. Fox also works with groups interested in reforming the federal tax system, and advises and consults with other law firms on substantive estate planning issues and the administration of their practices. Mr. Fox widely publishes in distinguished periodicals, journals, and books, and he lectures annually at numerous seminars on estate planning and trust administration topics for banks, bar associations, and other organizations throughout the country.
Mitchell M. Gans is a Professor of Law at Hofstra University School of Law. He was formerly an associate in the Tax and Trust Estates Departments at the New York City law firm Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett and law clerk to Associate Judge Jacob D. Fuchsberg, New York State Court of Appeals. Professor Gans has lectured extensively to various bar associations concerning taxation and trusts and estates issues. He is an Academic Fellow at the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and has written and lectured extensively on family limited partnerships and, in particular, about the Strangi decision.
Ronald D. Aucutt is a member of the law firm McGuire Woods LLP, where he leads the firm’s private wealth services group. He is the immediate past president of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and a past vice chair for committee operations of the American Bar Association’s Section of Taxation. He is also a Fellow of the American College of tax Counsel and the American Bar Foundation, a member of the Executive Council of the International Academy of Estate and Trust Law, and a member of the Advisory Committee of the University of Miami Philip E. Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning. Mr. Aucutt has lectured on estate planning subjects at numerous tax institute and conference nationwide, and is the author of more than 50 published articles on estate planning and related tax subjects. He is co-author of Structuring Estate Freezes (Warren Gorham & Lamont 1996).
Program Schedule
- 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time
- 1:00 p.m. Central Time (and Indiana)
- 12:00 p.m. Mountain Time
- 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time (and Arizona)
Suggested Prerequisite: Limited experience in estate planning and taxation
Educational Objective: Update on recent developments in estate planning and taxation
Level of Instruction: Intermediate and higher
