This course examines the federal wealth transfer tax system, including the estate, gift, and generation-skipping taxes; in particular, their application to a wide variety of gratuitous transfers, both lifetime and testamentary. In the case of the gift tax, it considers the concept of a "transfer of property by gift," complete and incomplete transfers, the annual exclusion, and gift-splitting. In the case of the estate tax, it considers the concept of "gross estate," including interests still owned at death, property transferred during life subject to retained interests or powers or in contemplation of death, property subject to powers of appointment, jointly owned property, life insurance, and annuities and employee death benefits. As to both the gift tax and the estate tax, it focuses heavily on the marital and charitable deductions, the unified credit, and problems of valuation. It also considers the generation-skipping tax, but in less detail. Throughout, it relates the material under consideration to basic, and sometimes not-so-basic, estate planning, including the creation of trusts, both revocable and irrevocable, and the transfer of business interests from one generation to another.
Prerequisite/Co-requisite: Wills & Estates
FIT is NOT a prerequisite.
Related Course Areas
Property, Tax
Ascher, Mark L. 