Law Commons^™

Elaine Hightower Gagliardi On Flipping The Lens Of Estate Planning: An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of Lifetime Transfers To Achieve Federal And State Tax Savings, Elaine H. Gagliardi

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

Estate planners are recalibrating their planning focus in response to recent tax modifications at the federal and state levels. The need to refocus planning emanates from changes wrought by recent federal tax acts, beginning in 20011 and ending in 20132 with enactment of “permanent” provisions which increase the basic exclusion amount for federal estate and gift tax and generation skipping transfer tax exemption to an inflation adjusted $5,340,000 as of 2014,3 institute the portability election for federal estate tax purposes,4 alter the transfer tax rate to essentially a flat 40 percent,5 and eliminate the state death tax credit in favor …