April, 2015

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Features: Staying Connected Via LinkedIn Estate Planning Law Specialist Designation In Every Issue: Message from the President 52nd Annual NAEPC Advanced Estate Planning Strategies Conference, November 18-20, 2015 - Registration Open Online Education Accredited Estate Planner® Designation Discount Programs for Estate Planning Council Members The Council Corner (Just for EPC Leadership) Message from the President Jordon N. Rosen, CPA, MST, AEP® Belfint, Lyons & Shuman, PA Wilmington, Delaware It's cold and snowing today in Wilmington, Delaware so I've decided to work from home, which isn't the best thing if you're an accountant trying to meet a tax deadline. As I review my clients' taxes for 2014 I can't help thinking about how the latest tax changes proposed by the President would impact their current retirement and estate plans. Indeed, these proposals face an uphill battle in Congress and many commentators will tell you that they are already DOA, but we still need to understand the potential impact that each of these provisions would have and advise on the alternatives. Current proposals include rolling back the estate and gift tax exclusions to pre-2010 levels, limiting GRAT terms, requiring inherited IRAs to be withdrawn within 5 years and even taxing the built-in gain on appreciated property upon gifting or at death, just to name a few. Reviewing the potential impact will probably go beyond the expertise of any one of us in our respective profession, thus demanding that we collaborate together at the highest level as a team with other estate planning advisors to best serve our clients' interest. In the spirit of multi-disciplinary teaming, please be sure to visit the new Guide to Teaming section of our website to learn more about webinars, publications and other educational opportunities devoted to this effort. Here are two things this wintery weather shouldn't stop you from doing. First, register for the monthly Robert G. Alexander Webinar Series, presented by the leading experts in their respective field. These very affordable one-hour sessions address many of the technical as well as practical aspects of estate planning and dealing with clients and their issues. Second, be sure to visit our website and log on to the NAEPC Journal of Estate & Tax Planning. This quarter's edition provides a wonderful selection of up-to-date articles on a variety of subjects that is sure to have something that will help all of you in your practice. And finally, here's a warm though for all of you (especially for our colleagues in Boston!)—mark your calendar now for the 52nd Annual NAEPC Advanced Estate Planning Strategies Conference in Amelia Island, Florida, November 18-20, 2015. In addition to sitting by the pool (a favorite of mine), golfing, tennis and working on your tan, you will be networking with other estate planning professionals while learning the latest trends and planning techniques from a star-studded lineup of speakers. Look for our early-bird brochure and to learn more about the conference, check our website. Stay warm.

Who Are We? by Al W. King, III, JD, LL.M., AEP® (Distinguished) Most of the successful companies and sports teams attribute their success to the team concept. The best teams all understand each other's role and most importantly the ultimate goal or goals. As the Hall of Fame professional football coach Vince Lombardi once said "The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined efforts of each individual." This epitomizes the NAEPC concept of a multi-disciplinary team to estate planning. Having worked at a fee-based financial planning firm, national securities firm, national insurance company, regional bank, "Big Four" CPA firm, international money center bank, law firm, and now a founder of a trust company without products, I came to realize firsthand over the years the importance of multi-disciplinary teamwork regarding a client's estate planning. I also came to realize that this teamwork takes many forms. [READ MORE]   RESOURCES     NAEPC National Website {CouncilName}

Staying Connected

NAEPC offers several options to stay connected, both to the association and to one another, and you are encouraged to take advantage of any many as possible, including:

• Attending your local estate planning council meetings regularly
• Joining one or more of the NAEPC groups on LinkedIn (LinkedIn account necessary to participate)
  • General, for all members of Estate Planning Councils
  • Accredited Estate Planner® Designee
  • Council Leaders Only
• Registering for the 52nd Annual NAEPC Advanced Estate Planning Strategies Conference, the national association's only face-to-face meeting each year
• Volunteering, either with your local EPC or with NAEPC

Estate Planning Law Specialist Designation Program

The Estate Law Specialist Board, Inc., an attorney-run subsidiary of the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils, is the only ABA-accredited program for certification of an attorney as an Estate Planning Law Specialist (EPLS). Attorneys who become Board-certified under this elite program demonstrate a high level of professionalism and a commitment to the concept of specialization. The program was accredited by the ABA in 1996.

To obtain Board-certified status, an attorney must meet the following requirements:

• Five or more years as an estate planning attorney during which at least 1/3 of the attorney's practice is devoted to estate planning
• 12 or more hours of continuing legal education in estate planning topics per year for the last three years
• Verification of professional liability insurance coverage
• Recommendations from at least five colleagues who are not related to or within the same firm as the applicant
• Passing a comprehensive exam designed so competent attorneys having constant exposure to estate planning can pass without substantial independent study

Learn more by contacting our office or reviewing the standards for certification.

52nd Annual NAEPC
Advanced Estate Planning Strategies Conference
with Pre-conference Sessions for Council Leaders

Add the 52nd Annual Conference to your Outlook calendar.

Education & Collaboration

November 18 - 20, 2015
Amelia Island, Florida
Omni Amelia Island Plantation

Registration is Open!

Please plan on attending our signature annual event, the 52nd Annual NAEPC Advanced Estate Planning Strategies Conference with pre-conference sessions for Estate Planning Council Leaders. The program offers one day for leaders of estate planning councils (Council Leadership Day, Wednesday, November 18th) and two full days of continuing education for every estate planner (Thursday, November 19th & Friday, November 20th).

The Annual Conference is available to all estate planning professionals and provides two full days of national, multi-disciplinary, continuing education credit!

The early bird brochure is now available and registration is open! Attendees can expect to learn from and spend time with the following speakers during the two days of technical education:

• Steve R. Akers, JD, AEP® (Distinguished): "Annual Update" & "Exclusive AEP® Session: A Dialogue with Steve Akers"
• Janelle Benefield: "Financial Reform & Its Impact on Your Merchant Account"
• Tom Breedlove: "The Case(s) for Household Employment Compliance: Case Studies Illustrating How to Mitigate Tax & Legal Risk"
• Mickey R. Davis, JD: "All About that Basis: Creative Ways to Obtain Basis at Death"
• Samuel A. Donaldson, JD, LL.M., AEP® (Distinguished): "Dealing with Uncle Sam, Everyone's Least Favorite Relative in the Family Business (Income Tax Planning for Closely-held Businesses)"
• Michael W. Halloran, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC®, AEP® (Distinguished) Nominee: "Due Diligence in Selecting and Understanding Life Insurance Policies"
• Stephan R. Leimberg, JD, AEP® (Distinguished): "Life Insurance - Key Cases and Rulings of 2014-15"
• Richard A. Oshins, JD, LL.M., MBA, AEP® (Distinguished): "Improving (and/or Revisiting) Popular Estate Planning Strategies"
• Jeffrey N. Pennell, JD: Third Party Trusts in Divorce - Is a Beneficiary's Interest Marital Property?"
• John W. Porter, B.B.A., JD, AEP® (Distinguished): "The 30,000 Foot View from the Trenches: A Potpourri of Transfer Tax Issues on the IRS's Radar Screen"
• Nancy B. Rapoport, JD: "Nudging More Ethical Behavior through Incentives and Checklists"
• Martin M. Shenkman, CPA, PFS, MBA, JD, AEP® (Distinguished): "Planning Potpourri"
• Diana S.C. Zeydel, JD, LL.M.: "Portability or No: Death of the Credit Shelter Trust"

As always, www.naepc.org/conference is the best place to obtain current information on the annual conference. Check in often!

We are grateful for the support of our sponsors, including:

Upcoming Webinars in the
Robert G. Alexander Webinar Series

Next Program

Wednesday, April 22, 2015 3:00pm - 4:00pm ET
Decanting an Irrevocable Trust: The Ultimate Do-Over
Steven J. Oshins, JD, AEP® (Distinguished)

Decanting allows the terms of an irrevocable trust to be changed by distributing the trust assets to a different trust with different terms. This has become a popular technique because there are so many people who want to change the the terms of their irrevocable trusts.

Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP® (Distinguished) is a member of the Law Offices of Oshins & Associates, LLC in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America® and was named the Las Vegas Trusts and Estates Lawyer of the Year in 2012 and 2015 by The Best Lawyers in America®. He was inducted into the NAEPC Estate Planning Hall of Fame® in 2011.

Upcoming Programs

Wednesday, May 13, 2015 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm ET
Case Studies on In-Home Care: Important Information for Your Clients presented by Care.com
Tom Breedlove Director, Care.com HomePay(SM)

If you have clients who employ a senior caregiver(s), there are important nuances to compliance that may impact your clients, especially if the care is funded through a trust or through third-party payers like Medicaid or Long Term Care insurance. Tom Breedlove of Care.com HomePay Provided by Breedlove, an expert in household employment, will share relevant case studies that illustrate tax and legal risks and how to help your clients avoid them.

Tom Breedlove, Director, Care.com HomePay(SM)
Tom brings 25+ years of business experience, including 9 years on the executive team at Breedlove & Associates—now Care.com HomePay—the nation's leading household employment specialist. With a mission to help families handle all the tax and legal obligations that come with employing a caregiver in the home, Care.com HomePay is the go-to resource for thousands of placement agencies, accountants, financial advisors and attorneys.

As Director of Care.com HomePay, Tom is a leader of a national service firm focused on delivering a comprehensive solution for busy families with care in the home—handling all of the state and federal employer requirements related to payroll, wage reporting, tax remittance, labor law compliance, and tax agency correspondence. From paydays to tax time and all points in between, Care.com HomePay eliminates all the work and worry for household employers.

This program is available at no charge.

Continuing Education Credit

Continuing education credit will be available at each webinar for Accredited Estate Planner® designees. In addition, a certificate of completion will be made available for those professionals who feel the program satisfies their continuing education requirements and are able to self-file. Councils may also file the program in their home state for programs offered in a group setting.

Registration Fees

• $40 / Accredited Estate Planner® designee (dues must be current at the time of registration)
• $60 / member of an affiliated local estate planning council or at-large member of NAEPC
• $100 / individual non-member
• $250 / council meeting or group gathering (council dues must be current at the time of registration)

Accredited Estate Planner® Designation Program

Becoming an Accredited Estate Planner® designee is more than just completing an application, submitting it, and waiting for acceptance.

Obtaining the Accredited Estate Planner® designation offers more than an additional set of initials after your name.

Maintaining the Accredited Estate Planner® designation requires commitment.

• Commitment to ongoing learning through continuing education
• Commitment to high ethical standards
• Commitment to maintaining relationships with professionals in the community through membership in an estate planning council

And finally...

• Commitment to the collaborative approach to estate planning, because that is what best serves the client

ARE YOU COMMITTED?

Learn more about becoming an Accredited Estate Planner® designee today!

Please join us in congratulating the newest Accredited Estate Planner® designees nationwide:

Member Benefits & Discount Programs

All members of affiliated local councils have access to a growing and diverse offering of benefits provided through the council's affiliation with NAEPC, a list of which appears below. You are encouraged to visit www.naepc.org to take a look today. As you browse, please remember that some benefits are password protected. For these special benefits members must utilize a user name/password to access detailed ordering links and information. If you are an At-large member or member of a council that utilizes passwords on a website hosted by NAEPC, you can use the "I forgot my password" option. Others should contact NAEPC with questions about the appropriate user name/password combination.

New Benefit

Bloomberg BNA's Art of the Estate Tax Return by Keith Schiller

Art of the Estate Tax Return, Second Edition—Estate Planning at the Movies® provides in-depth tax analysis and strategic counsel, while offering the ultimate in readability, by connecting well-known motion pictures to practical estate planning and compliance. These connections create great reminders of significant strategies or law, making the tax law fun.

Underlying the cinematic connections, the author shares his best practice tips from a career of preparing, reviewing, and defending estate tax returns, and his greater than 25 years of teaching experience for tax professionals.

This treatise explores the nuances of law and procedure that enter into the preparation and defense of Form 706, including:

• Expanded coverage of portability elections
• Illustrated estate tax returns
• Maximizing valuation discounts and deductions
• Protecting FLPs and FLLCs
• Securing best appraisal results
• Tips to avoid audits
• Pointers on GST reporting
• Cautions and help for fiduciaries
• Warnings and opportunities from inconsistencies in the law
• Strategies for audits and appeals
• And much more!

Winner of the 2010-2011 Award for Outstanding Course Materials by the CalCPA Education Foundation.

Estate Planning At The Movies® is the registered trademark of Keith Schiller.

NAEPC members are entitled to a 20% discount on this publication, the promotion code can be obtained by logging  into our members-only area for special pricing and ordering links.

Existing Benefits

Acquire Seminar Marketing American Bar Association Paralegal Program Amicus Creative Media BVR's Guide to Business Valuation Issues in Estate & Gift Tax edited by Linda Trugman, CPA/ABV, CBA, ASA, MBA Charitable Planning Desk Reference for Advisors offered by Strategic Philanthropy Cloudia Assistant CrummeyService, America's Leading ILIT Software Company DocuBank: Emergency Access to Vital Documents Estate Assist Estate Planning Smarts, A Practical, User-Friendly, Action-Oriented Guide, By Deborah L. Jacobs EstatePlanningBinders.com Family Business Magazine Family Wealth Map Florida Domicile Handbook: Vital Information for New Florida Residents Heart2Hearts: Workbook and Deck of Cards, Discuss Directives, LLC International Genealogical Search Inc.

International Association of StoryKeepers (I-ASK) Klark Proposal Software Konica Minolta Business Solutions Lawgic, LLC LegacyQuest, LLC Legal Binder Now (LBN) LegalVault - Revolutionizing Attorney Document Storage My Perfect Will My Personal DataSafe LLC, the Nation's Most Comprehensive System for Sharing and Managing Client Information NAEPC Journal of Estate & Tax Planning NationalUnderwriter.com Oswald Companies Personal Excess Liability Ruby Receptionists The ABA Checklist for Family Heirs: A Guide to Family History, Financial Plans and Final Wishes Sterling Cut Glass The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc. Trusts & Estates Magazine Veracity - MTG (payment processing solutions) Washington Institute for Graduate Studies WealthManagement.com Wolters Kluwer Law & Business

NAEPC Journal of Estate & Tax Planning
Your Online Resource for Multi-Disciplinary Information

The NAEPC Journal of Estate & Tax Planning is a web-based library of best-in-class thought leadership appropriate for every member of every estate planning council. Visit www.NAEPCJournal.org today to view current and past issues of the publication.

Published quarterly and available at no-charge to all estate planning council members and Accredited Estate Planner® designees, The Journal is considered to be one of the top benefits of membership in NAEPC.

Within the current issue you will find the following articles, take a look today!

• 2nd Annual Trust Decanting State Rankings Chart
• 2015 Key Numbers
• Building Your Practice and Developing Your Skills Locally and Nationally
• Charitable Planning with Closely Held Business Interests
• Dealing with Financial Planning Risk - Directing Portfolio Decisions or Navigating Human Behavior?
• Effective Collaboration: The True Frontier of Estate Planning
• Life Insurance—Tax Issues to Be Aware Of
• Planning for Estates Under the $10 Million Exemption
• Recent Developments Affecting the Estate Planning Practice
• Ron Aucutt's Top Ten Estate Planning and Estate Tax Developments of 2014
• The Taxing Side of Divorce: Division of Non-Qualified Employee Benefits
• To Convert or Not to Convert, That is the Question
• Web Meets the Will: Estate Planning for Digital Assets

The Council Corner
News Just for the Estate Planning Council & its Leadership

The Council Relations Committee is dedicated being the personal connection to the NAEPC for estate planning councils and to assist in maximizing the resources available to the nearly 260 councils across the country. Many of these services and tools are included in the council dues at no additional charge and are designed to help the council be as effective as possible to their membership and the public.

From the free referral services, web site platforms, to the Council Nominated Accredited Estate Planner® (AEP®) designation program, our committee can help council leaders understand and utilize these tools and special benefits. I encourage you to visit our website, especially the For Councils section and its sub-tabs; a log-in is not required. You may also wish to look at the information found at the "For the Public" tab as is an amazing resource for consumers (including our public website www.EstatePlanningAnswers.org) This tool can be extremely helpful, especially for our valued clients as they grapple with the terms and definitions of our profession. Enjoy the tour of YOUR website—we built it just for you!

National Association of Estate Planners & Councils 1120 Chester Avenue, Suite 470 Cleveland, OH  44114
Phone: (866) 226-2224  ~  Fax: (216) 696-2582  ~  E-Mail: admin@naepc.org

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