Because of the applicable exclusion amount, a married couple must have an estate of almost $11,000,000 dollars (2016) before the estate taxman comes and actually takes his share. As a consequence, the emphasis in estate planning–at least for smaller estates–is all about saving income taxes–capital gains, to be precise–on appreciated property.

I don’t have the time right now to go into this in detail, but I do have time to link to an extended paper on the subject by Edwin P. Morrow and to a shorter article in the Wall Street Journal. If you’re interested, both are worth a read. Enjoy.

And have a great weekend.

Oh, and here’s that song. Well, at least my favorite version.