The State of the States: 2018The State of the States: 2018

State legislatures have been very busy on a number of trust and estate-related fronts. Here’s an update on some key planning developments across the country, through Nov. 30, 2018.

Estate and Gift Tax  

Over the last year, there have been significant changes to the estate and gift tax landscape at both the federal and state level. At this time last year, states were eagerly awaiting the final version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the Act) to assess the state-level impact. The Act doubled the federal estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exemption amounts to $11.18 million per individual, indexed for inflation. This caught by surprise those states that had exemption amounts tied to the federal amount. States that didn’t in...