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Trusts & Estates

Fiduciary income tax, exemption windows, and long-horizon planning for families and private capital.

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Tax AlertJune 20268 min read

Notice 2026-40: Two Opportunity Zone Regimes, One Hard Deadline

IRS Notice 2026-40, issued in June 2026, is the first transitional guidance on the Qualified Opportunity Zone program after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21, § 70421) rebuilt it. The notice draws a hard line at December 31, 2026: investments made on or before that date stay on the original rules and face a mandatory deferred-gain inclusion in the taxable year that includes that date, while investments made on or after January 1, 2027 move onto a new permanent regime with a rolling five-year inclusion, a 10 percent basis step-up (30 percent for qualified rural opportunity funds), a fresh designation period running January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2036, and a 30-year ceiling on the gain-exclusion election. Two narrow safe harbors let previously designated zones keep functioning through December 31, 2047. Proposed regulations are forthcoming.

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AnalysisApril 20269 min read

The $15 Million Exemption Is Permanent: Why Pre-Sunset Bypass Trusts and SLATs May Now Work Against Your Clients

OBBBA made the estate, gift, and GST exemption permanent at $15 million per person, ending the multiyear sunset rush that drove private-client planning since 2022. The cliff is gone, but the structures built to beat it remain: formula-funded credit shelter trusts that mechanically over-fund the bypass and forfeit a second basis step-up, aggressive SLATs and IDGTs that now carry grantor-trust income-tax drag for no transfer-tax purpose, and disclaimer plans whose default has quietly become outright passage. The right response is not to re-announce the number but to re-read the documents against it.

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AnalysisFebruary 20264 min read

The Estate Exemption Cliff Is Gone: Planning at a Permanent $15 Million

For two years, estate planning ran against a clock: the federal exemption was scheduled to roughly halve at the end of 2025. OBBBA removed that clock. The basic exclusion amount is $15 million per person for decedents dying in 2026, indexed going forward, and made permanent. The use-it-or-lose-it pressure that defined recent planning is gone — but "permanent" is a statutory word, not a constitutional one, and the case for using exemption has not disappeared with the deadline.

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AnalysisNovember 20255 min read

The $15 Million Estate Exemption Is Here to Stay: Rethinking Transfer-Tax Planning After OBBBA

For years, families with transfer-tax exposure planned against a cliff: the elevated estate and gift exemption was scheduled to be cut roughly in half after 2025, and the watchword was "use it or lose it." The One Big Beautiful Bill Act removed the cliff. The exemption is permanently set at $15 million per individual, and the IRS has now confirmed the 2026 figure. The planning question changes accordingly — from racing a deadline to building deliberately at a higher, stable exemption.

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AnalysisOctober 20256 min read

QSBS 2.0: How OBBBA's Tiered Section 1202 Exclusion and $15 Million Cap Reward Founders and Investors

Qualified small business stock has long offered one of the most powerful exclusions in the Code — but only on an all-or-nothing basis after a five-year hold. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act redesigned it. Stock acquired after July 4, 2025 now earns partial exclusion at three and four years, a higher per-issuer cap, and a higher company-size ceiling. The catch is the date: older stock keeps the old rules. There are now two parallel regimes, and which one applies turns entirely on when the stock was acquired.

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AnalysisDecember 20244 min read

What's Coming in 2025: The Estate Exemption Hits $13.99 Million as the Sunset Stays on the Calendar

The IRS has released the 2025 inflation adjustments, and the federal estate and gift exemption climbs to $13.99 million per person, with the annual gift exclusion rising to $19,000. For families doing year-end and early-2025 gifting, those are the figures to use. But the larger fact has not changed: under current law, the elevated exemption is still scheduled to fall after 2025. The higher 2025 numbers widen the window — they do not extend it.

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AnalysisJune 20244 min read

Buy-Sell Agreements After Connelly: Why Corporate-Owned Life Insurance Just Got More Expensive at Death

A unanimous Supreme Court has held that life insurance a corporation receives to redeem a deceased owner's shares increases the company's value for estate-tax purposes — and that the obligation to redeem those shares does not offset it. For closely held businesses that fund their buy-sell agreements through entity-owned policies, this is not a marginal technicality. It can convert a succession plan into an estate-tax problem. The structures need a hard look now, not after the next death.

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AnalysisOctober 20236 min read

Moore v. United States: The Supreme Court Case That Could Reach Far Beyond Section 965

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether income must be realized before it can be taxed. The case concerns a one-time tax on the undistributed earnings of a foreign corporation, but the constitutional question it raises is broad enough to touch large parts of the tax code and to bear on proposals for federal wealth taxation. For taxpayers who paid the tax at issue, the case also creates a narrow, time-sensitive planning question that should be considered before the refund window closes.

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AnalysisNovember 20225 min read

The 2023 Exemption Jumps to $12.92M: A Late-2022 Gifting Window Before the 2026 Sunset

Revenue Procedure 2022-38 announced the 2023 inflation adjustments in October, including the largest single-year increase in the basic exclusion amount since the TCJA nearly doubled it in 2018. The 2023 exemption of $12.92 million per individual — up from $12.06 million in 2022 — creates a meaningful expansion in the current gifting window. But the more consequential planning context is the scheduled 2026 sunset that remains on the books.

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AnalysisDecember 20216 min read

The 2022 Estate Exemption Rises to $12.06 Million: A Gifting Window Framed by the 2026 Sunset

The IRS has released the 2022 inflation adjustments, and the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax exclusion rises to $12,060,000 — with the annual gift exclusion increasing to $16,000, its first move since 2018. The larger number is welcome, but the more important fact for planning is the calendar behind it: under current law, the doubled exclusion is scheduled to be cut roughly in half on January 1, 2026. For families with the means and the intent to make large gifts, the window to use the higher exclusion is real, finite, and protected against clawback.

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