On January 1, 2013, Congress passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, and President Obama signed the Act into law on January 2, 2013. Experts consider the law’s changes in the estate planning field to be huge, opening up great planning opportunities for trusts and estates lawyers. Exemption amounts, and their ‘permanence,’ for gift, estate and generation-skipping tax, the exclusion amount for a surviving spouse for federal gift or estate tax, and the effect of the federal changes on how to plan for New York’s tax laws are just some of the Act’s changes and implications for estate planners.

Sanford (“Sandy”) J. Schlesinger, the founding partner of Schlesinger Gannon & Lazetera LLP, discusses in this one hour program the transfer tax aspects of the Act, including the following:

• The major gift tax, estate tax and generation-skipping transfer tax provisions of the Act.

• How the Act affects estate planning and the administration of decedents’ estates in 2013 and thereafter.

• State transfer tax consequences of the Act, of particular concern to New Yorkers.

• The continuation of portability by the Act and whether or not it eliminates the need for “by pass” trust planning.

• The Obama administration’s proposals regarding short term grantor retained annuity trusts, valuation discounts and grantor trusts, which were omitted from the Act, and the estate planning techniques that continue to be viable on account of those omissions.

Total MCLE Credits      1.0
Ethics MCLE Credits     0.0


This archived webcast is a video online program that you will view and listen to on your computer screen.