In This Issue

News, Articles, and Updates for the Estate Planner
IRS Proposes New Registration, Testing, and Continuing Education Requirements for Tax Return Preparers; the White House's Middle Class Task Force recommends initiatives to help families pay for elder care and help grow retirement savings; IRS and Tax Court make rulings on a number of topics affecting estate planning and elder law, and more.
See updates and article references involving charitable trusts and donations; elder law; estate/trust administration; estate planning; estate taxation; generation-skipping transfer tax; gift taxes; health care; interest; irrevocable trusts; probate; retirement; small and mid-size firm practice; special needs trusts; trusts; and wills.

Cowles Tech Tip
Whenever a client's estate will be subject to estate taxes (in whatever form the federal estate tax comes back in), the client is considering the purchase of substantial amounts of new life insurance, or the client wishes to make gifts, the benefits of using an irrevocable trust should be considered. Cowles Trust Plus offers the ability to generate either an individual or joint irrevocable trust. This Cowles Tech Tip highlights how to use this feature.

THE ESTATE PLANNER AS A WORD DOCUMENT
Access The Estate Planner as a Microsoft Word document.