As more states legalize cannabis sales, estate planners may increasingly be called upon to advise clients with interests in cannabis-related businesses. This essay seeks assist estate planners in two ways. First, it aims to raise general awareness of cannabis business owners’ unique concerns....

Financial concerns may preclude people of modest wealth (defined for purposes of this article as those having a net worth between $1 million and $5 million) from making significant lifetime transfers to achieve estate planning goals. Yet lifetime transfers are among the most effective ways to...

In this essay, the author provides a brief overview of the history of the flagship publication of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, including its past leadership, focus and multiple name changes. The author reflects on her service as editor of the ACTEC Law Journal and the...

Could a feminist perspective change the shape of the tax law? Most people understand that feminist reasoning has tremendous potential to affect, for example, the law of employment discrimination, sexual harassment, and reproductive rights. Few people may be aware, however, that feminist analysis...

This short essay introduces a special issue of the ACTEC Law Journal devoted to the estate planning jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States. The issue includes two invited essays on the role of the court in developing the law in this area, as well as commentaries on seventeen of...

In order to do any “estate planning,” one must first understand the distinction between probate and nonprobate property. Probate property passes under a will. Nonprobate property passes outside a will, transferring automatically to a person (or people) that the owner has designated during...

Completion is the sine qua non of gift taxation. A grantor's retained control over transferred property (intentionally or unintentionally) may cause a gift to be incomplete for gift tax purposes. This is true even if the grantor has no beneficial interest in transferred property. Powers that...

This article provides an overview of the estate tax consequences of jointly-held general powers of appointment. To avoid triggering estate tax inclusion, a general power should be held with either the creator of the power or a person having a 'substantial' and 'adverse' interest in the exercise...

This short column is part of the annual Tax Notes issue that highlights noteworthy law review articles published during the previous year. In this piece, I identify articles relating to estate and gift tax taxation that practitioners likely will find of interest, not withstanding Chief Justice...

This book deals with the federal income tax as it bears on gratuitous transfers and with the federal wealth transfer taxes. The federal wealth transfer taxes presently consist of a partially unified estate and gift tax and a generation-skipping tax. The federal transfer tax system is separate...