Estate Planning in a Post 2012 Taxpayer Relief Act Environment

For many people, the last few months of 2012 were an estate planning headache weighing the costs and benefits of gifting to children or trusts while debating whether the Federal government would increase or decrease the lifetime unified credit.  The lifetime unified credit is the total combined amount you may transfer while alive (without incurring gift tax liability) and through your estate (without incurring estate tax liability), referred to hereinafter as the “exemption amount”.  For the better part of a decade, there has been uncertainty and the looming deadline of legal change.  After the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (“Act”), we now know the rules of the game going forward.   READ MORE