Estate taxes may be the bane of wealthy families, but they are a boon for wealth managers because clients need their help with trusts, gifts and investment vehicles that minimize the impact of estate taxes. So the Bush Administration's proposal to...

It'd be easy to write off 2004 as a year of much talk and little action when it comes to trusts and estates law easy, but misleading. While it's true that Congress failed to enact estate tax legislation, a major tax law it did pass, the...

The implications of a case handed two years ago have not been adequately appreciated by practitioners. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Oct. 16, 2002, affirmed a decision of the Tax Court denying an estate tax deduction for a...

In the 1880s, early in John Singer Sargent's career, he confronted a dilemma when painting children's portraits for wealthy English patrons. The artist, born in Italy to American parents, had studied art in Paris then practiced in France. But his...

Although he played Superman on the silver screen, it was after Christopher Reeve broke his neck and became paralyzed in 1995 at age 42 in a horseback riding accident, that he became a symbol of courage and hope to the world. Against the odds...

The year 2004 saw developments in retirement benefits ranging from new final, minimum distribution regulations for defined benefit plans to a crackdown on abusive Roth IRAs. Many of the highlights have been addressed in Trusts & Estates during the...

This letter is in reaction to the article A Threat to All SNTs by Mark Merrick and Douglas W. Stein, which appeared in Trusts & Estates' November 2004 issue. The thrust of their article is that the passage of the Uniform Trust Code will cripple...

The past year was difficult for life insurance in estate planning. This year will be worse. But the astute insurance professional and other members of the estate-planning team will find much to capitalize on by riding the paradigm shift. Though we...

This article updates the guide published in Trusts & Estates, volume 143 (January 2004) and examines trust and estates software and online resources. In practice, the distinction between Internet-based resources and software continues to blur as...

Of course, no one knows for sure what will happen to the federal estate tax. And it may happen, because of surprising developments this December in the Senate, that the repeal will actually take place. Sixty Senators now seem to be saying they'll...