Observations of the 44th Annual Philip E. Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning

"The 44th Annual Philip E. Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning was again held in Orlando during the week of January 25, 2010. I have summarized some of my observations for the week, as well as other observations from developments over the last several months. My goal is not to provide a general summary of the presentations; the summaries provided on the American Bar Association Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Section website (http://www.abanet.org/rppt/meetings_cle/heckerling) that is prepared by a number of reporters, coordinated by Joe Hodges, do an excellent job of that. In addition, there are excellent summaries provided by Martin Shenkman on the Leimberg Information Services reports. This is merely a summary of observations of selected items during the week. I sometimes identify speakers, but often not. However, I take no credit for any of the outstanding ideas discussed at the Institute -- I am merely relaying the ideas of others that were discussed during the week.

Much of the discussion at the Institute focused on planning issues in light of the "repeal" of the estate and GST taxes for 2010 together with the imposition of a modified carryover basis system."