Coping With Coming Tax Increases

Investor's Business Daily has an article discussing the coming rollback of the Bush tax cuts.  The proposals will take effect mostly in 2011.  Some of the key specifics include:

• Raises capital gains taxes to 20% and treats dividends as ordinary income
• Highest tax bracket goes from 35 to 39.6%
• Estate tax is slated to have a 55% top rate with a 1 million exemption
• 3.8% surtax on investment income
  

The article which can be found here, suggests a few planning strategies to cope with these changes including Qualified Personal Residence Trusts and Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts.