Thomas A. Tietz ■ Media
Life Insurance Planning After Tax Reform
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law by President Trump on December 22, 2017. The Act brings direct changes to the tax treatment of insurance and significant indirect changes to planning with life insurance. These changes present…
Tax Reform Opens the Door for Multi-Purpose ILITs
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act brings direct changes to the tax treatment of insurance and significant indirect changes to planning with life insurance. There are new and interesting life insurance planning opportunities these changes present in particular multi-purpose irrevocable…
Estate Planning in the New Tax and Societal Environment
Estate planning is evolving in significant ways, and if your clients haven’t updated their planning and documents for the new world of estate planning, the planning likely won’t be as effective as they wish. More than ever before, estate planning…
The Bernie Sanders Estate Tax Proposal – Might it Foreshadow Future Democratic Proposals?
While one might dismiss these proposals as mere electioneering by Sanders, this proposal might be a glimpse as to what could occur if the Democrats control both congress and the presidency. Why should practitioners care? While there may currently be…
Using Technology For The Modern Estate Planning Practice
As push back from prospective clients grows, the time allocated to drafting documents, and handling paper in the estate practice, will have to be reduced in order for attorneys to remain profitable. Increasing automation of the estate planning practice is…
Incorporating Technology Into Your Practice
Technology continues to evolve estate-planning practices. Many firms may be paperless, cloud-based practices. They may be using document generation software and other software products to facilitate better client interactions, management and more efficient research and drafting. However, the reality is…
How I am Changing My Practice, Client Meetings, Client Planning, and More to Address the Coronavirus
We are in the throes of the Coronavirus pandemic, and even though states are loosening stay-at-home restrictions, the impact on estate planners professionals, as well as their families, finances, and our country, will continue for some time. Estate planners have…
The Slow Return to the New Normal and Different Approaches to Signing/Executing Estate Planning Documents
This newsletter will provide an overview of different approaches to signing documents that various practitioners considered or used during the COVID-19 environment. In addition, a discussion of some of the general concepts of state law requirements for the valid execution…
Smaldino: Lessons to Consider on Structuring and Implementing Estate Planning
Smaldino, a recent Tax Court decision, provides several important lessons for practitioners to consider about how to approach structuring and implementing estate plans for certain clients, especially for clients that practitioners did planning for during the rush throughout 2020 and 2021,…
Estate Planning New Year’s Resolutions
Originally published in wealthmanagement.com Here’s a sample letter encouraging clients to formulate commitments for 2023. New Year’s is a time for resolutions, and estimates are that one-third of Americans will make a financial resolution. Why not encourage clients to make those…
Tax Court Denies Deduction of Administrative Expenses From Estate
A Tax Court ruling reaffirmed estate inclusion rules governing qualified terminable interest property (QTIP) trusts and the requirements for valuation of QTIP assets and determination of expenses. It also presents yet another lesson in how estate plans and family challenges can…
The Need for Trust Compilations – Organizing Planning for Clients
The suggestion of this article is that the client’s estate planner prepare, and maintain, a trust closing binder, analogous to closing binders commonly prepared in real estate and corporate transactions. However, unlike the real estate and corporate closing binder, this…
Does Your Office Sharing Arrangement Put Client Confidentiality at Risk?
A shared office or hybrid office solution creates unique challenges for practitioners to safeguard their clients’ confidentiality. A recent formal opinion, American Bar Association Formal Opinion 507 (Opinion 507), addresses ethical considerations for practitioners when using office sharing arrangements, such as client…
Defining Descendants- Who Inherits Under Your Client’s Wills and Trusts?
Who a client names as their beneficiaries is fundamental to carrying out their dispositive wishes. How their estate planning instruments define, or in the absence of a definition, the state default rule, terms such as ‘child,’ ‘‘descendant,’ and ‘issue,’ is…
Basic Estate Planning Documents: Overview and Planning Considerations
Professional articles and webinars so often focus on new developments, complex or creative new planning ideas, as practitioners are always seeking to understand what is changing and new ideas that they can bring to clients. However, the “bread and butter”…
Practical Steps for Going Paperless
Technology has changed the face of estate planning and will continue to do so. It’s altered the way practitioners interact with their clients and colleagues and how they conduct business. Many interactions with clients are now through web meetings, electronic…
Biden 2025’s Green Book Proposals, if Enacted, Will Change Estate Planning as We Know It
There is no way to determine which, if any, of the Biden proposals will be enacted, and if so, when. It is clear that the Democrats have been proposing similar harsh tax changes for a long time, and at some…
Trusts and Trustees Under the Corporate Transparency Act
Under the Corporate Transparency Act, certain information about the Beneficial Owners of certain ‘small’ entities must be provided to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the US Treasury Department. When a trust is an equity owner of a reporting company,…
Recission: Considerations and Applications for Planning in 2021
There have been several techniques that have been discussed for practitioners to consider employing when planning for uncertainty in changes to tax laws, such as including a disclaimer in trust documents using formula clauses in assignment and transfer documentation, etc….