On December 17, merely two weeks before the federal estate tax was scheduled to be reinstated with a $1,000,000 exemption and a 55% tax rate, President Obama signed sweeping new estate tax legislation into law. This new law has a deep impact on estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxes and tax planning. This is the first in a series of E-Alerts that addresses how this new law impacts you.

Most notably, the new law increases the estate, gift and generation skipping transfer tax exemptions.