Author: James G. Blase, CPA, JD, LLM, Blase & Associates, LLC, St. Louis, Missouri

Many clients are scrambling to implement significant gifting plans and trusts before changes are potentially made to the current estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax laws by a new Congress and president. Regardless of the outcome of the election, planning will need to take place before 2026, when the current $11.58 million lifetime gift and GST tax exemptions are scheduled to sunset, potentially being reduced to their previous $5 million levels, adjusted for inflation. For many high net worth married couples, the goal is to double the amount of this current gift to up to $23.16 million.

Halloween is in the air everywhere we look. Even with all the frightening imagery of ghouls, ghosts, and goblins, to estate planning attorneys there are things even more terrifying: legal drafting mistakes! Drafting mistakes can lead to disappointed phone calls from clients, negative online reviews, and worst of all, demand letters from the attorneys of angry children of deceased clients, followed by that dreaded call to your professional liability insurance carrier. This is truly the stuff nightmares are made of.

On October 8, 2020, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) issued a new simplified two-page Form 3508S application, instructions for borrowers, and accompanying guidance aimed at benefiting small business owners who obtained Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans of $50,000 or less. Borrowers and their affiliates that received loans of $2 million or more may not use Form 3508S. The new application and guidance, effective October 14, 2020, provide much-anticipated relief for eligible borrowers, including forgiveness reduction exemptions and fewer reporting requirements. The Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act, legislation proposed by the Senate in July, would have provided automatic forgiveness (upon attestation of a good faith effort to comply with PPP requirements) to borrowers receiving $150,000 or less in PPP funds.