Why attend?

This is not a how-to-do-it course. Its purpose is more basic, but not less important. It aims at creating the kind of broad knowledge and understanding that guards against mistakes through awareness. With such knowledge and awareness, the problems at least present themselves prominently and their solutions can be found. A course of this type cannot supply answers to all of the interpretive doubts that arise along the way, and no such attempt is made. Instead, the effort here is to develop basic principles and to focus attention on likely pitfalls in light of the authorities bearing on the interpretation of the transfer tax provisions of the Code. Tax law is primarily statutory law. For this reason, the statutory provisions are adopted as the skeleton of this course. Tax thinking in estate planning is by no means limited to estate and gift taxes and the generation-skipping transfer tax. The federal income tax is also highly relevant and is therefore discussed.

You will learn...