This course will provide students with a solid grounding in advanced estate-planning techniques to help them build the drafting and client-relations skills necessary to develop and implement a comprehensive estate plan. This course is required for the Certificate of Study in Estate Planning.
The course will be structured in two modules. The first module will introduce students to the application of technical tax regimes to complex planning scenarios. Topics covered will include philanthropy and private wealth planning; the role in estate planning of private foundations, public charities, and supporting organizations; charitable giving techniques; planning for family-controlled businesses; planning for highly compensated individuals; planning with qualified benefits; and international aspects of private wealth planning.
The second module will consist of a hands-on exercise in developing, drafting, and executing a complex estate plan. Working from a comprehensive fact pattern, students will make in-class presentations about the problem and participate in the development of the estate plan by drafting documents and by commenting on drafts prepared by others. These documents may include detailed legal memoranda, client communications, and analysis of planning alternatives.

This course is an overview of the federal estate and gift tax. Beginning with the gift tax, topics covered will include what constitutes a taxable gift, what types of property transfers are not gifts, and when a gift is treated as complete for Federal gift tax purposes. Students will explore both outright gifts and gifts in trust. The course will then turn to the estate tax, including what assets are included in a decedent's estate by virtue of "strings" the decedent retained on gifts made during lifetime. The gift and estate tax marital and charitable deductions will be covered, as well as the various gift and estate tax techniques often employed to reduce the tax on lifetime gifts and testamentary bequests. The matters covered in class are illustrated by examples drawn from current estate planning practice, recent cases and Internal Revenue Service rulings. Students will be evaluated based on a two-hour multiple-choice final exam.

Covers the principal federal income tax rules applicable to trusts and estates, including simple and complex trusts, grantor trusts, charitable trusts and income in respect of a decedent. The use of problems for illustrative purposes, planning points, and other practical considerations are emphasized in the course.

This course supplements the two estate planning courses taught earlier in the fall semester, Income Taxation of Trusts, Estates, and Beneficiaries and Estate and Gift Tax. Like those courses, it is required for the Estate Planning Certificate and is a prerequisite for the Spring estate planning course, Advanced Private Wealth Transfer Seminar. This course addresses four areas of special concern in wealth planning: advanced charitable planning concepts; valuation and business succession issues that arise in complex wealth planning; international aspects of wealth planning; and the generation skipping transfer tax or GST. Students will be evaluated primarily on the basis of class participation and a final exam.