Advising Clients on Portability: Making a Judgment Call or Doing the Math (Currently Unavailable)

Author: Robert S. Keebler

In advising clients, most estate planning professionals look to certain key factors, like the potential size of the estate when the surviving spouse passes, and step-up in basis and control of distribution after the first spouse dies, and then use a best guess as to whether electing portability or funding a bypass trust is better. However, that kind of simplistic analysis may result in the wrong decision for a particular client, especially when a more definitive, mathematical analysis is appropriate.

This course explains how to use mathematical analysis to advise clients who need to make choices on portability when dealing with estate planning and administration.

Publication Date: October 2015

Designed For
Tax practitioners.

Topics Covered

• Portability
• Estate and financial planning
• Step-up value
• Estate and generation-skipping taxes
• Estate tax exclusion
• Martial bequest
• Power of appointment
• Grantor trusts
• Retirement planning

Learning Objectives

• Describ the mathematics for choosing to use portability
• Identify basis step-up value to potential estate taxes
• Recognize the impact of the generation-skipping transfer tax on portability

Level
Intermediate

Instructional Method
Self-Study

NASBA Field of Study
Taxes (2 hours)

Program Prerequisites
Basic understanding of federal income and estate and gift taxes.

Advance Preparation
None