Bridget J. Crawford (Pace) has published Fixing the Federal Wealth Transfer Tax System, 131 Tax Notes 1281 (June 20, 2011):

At the end of last year, the 2010 Tax Act was enacted to extend many of the Bush-era tax cuts. It also increased the estate and gift tax exemption to $5 million, lowered the rate to 35%, and implemented spousal portability for exemptions. However, it didn’t address many of the substantial problems created by the 2001 Tax Act, originally scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. Instead, lawmakers merely kicked the can down the road and delayed the 2001 Tax Act’s sunset until the end of 2012. This period of continued uncertainty makes planning for the future unnecessarily difficult and expensive. Crawford proposes making permanent the $5 million exemption, 35% tax rate, and spousal portability of the 2010 Tax Act, while remedying the problems and uncertainty created by the scheduled sunset of existing estate and gift tax rules on December 31, 2012.

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