Section 24 Planning Threshold—Moving Target

• Library: Trust and Estate Legislation 2012

In fact, the existence of the QSJT may create an impetus for Missouri estate planners to begin to use joint trusts more often, especially when it is not clear if traditional formula-driven estate tax planning is appropriate. The days when it was relatively simple for an estate planner to gauge the assets level where the clients should insert the tax planning in their estate planning documents are long gone. It used to be that a couple needed to include the basic estate tax planning in their documents when their assets were close to or over one federal applicable exclusion amount. With the
re-instatement of the federal estate tax by the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 (the “New Act”), Pub. L. No. 111-312, 124 Stat. 3296, and its very generous applicable exclusion of $5 million, it would seem that the threshold asset value of a couple for estate tax planning would be $5 million. Unfortunately, the...