Powers of Appointment

Not infrequently, the first spouse to die will have inadequate assets in his or her taxable estate to ensure complete use of his or her estate tax exemption. This is more likely today now that the Federal estate tax exemption has risen to…

Powers to withdraw property from a trust which ultimately lapse, sometimes generically referred to as "Crummey powers," are a mainstay in estate planning. Their use can have far-reaching property as well as estate, gift and…

In many cases—but not all—the generation skipping transfer tax will be more expensive than either the estate or gift tax. Thus, estate planners need a mechanism by which the cheaper tax may be selected at the appropriate time and based on…

The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 ("ERTA" or "1981 Act") made many important changes to the wealth (i.e., estate, gift and generation-skipping) transfer tax provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.