In the interest of full disclosure, my view of the institute was primarily from the Thomson booth (I'm the designer of the Intuitive Estate Planner program published by Thomson/West).  The Thomson theme was “It’s a jungle out there,” depicting the dark and complex side of trusts-and-estates world.  There are, however many software products and web-based facilities that offer trusts-and-estates practitioner tools with which to hack through the underbrush and provide an occasional clearing where enlightenment shines through.

Comprehensive Programs

The major comprehensive estate-planning programs continue to add features and provide more integration for commonly used estate-planning calculations.

BNA Estate Tax Planner, version 2006.1, now has a substantially revised interface designed to simplify data entry, facilitate navigation and make “what-ifs” easier to perform.  It includes an enhanced series of graphical presentations.  It updates the state estate tax calculations for individual decoupled states.  The program also updates and incorporates on a regular basis federal and state tax changes.  

Intuitive Estate Planner (designed by the author) has enhanced and updated its computation of the state estate tax for decoupled states (including Ohio and Tennessee) and the Pennsylvania Inheritance tax, including allocation of taxes among the state of residence and two nonresident states.  It gives the user a choice between charging the state estate tax to the credit trust or to the marital deduction.  The program also features enhanced integration of pension planning with its estate tax and financial reports.

Brentmark Software, Inc. announced that it is adding state-specific inheritance and estate tax calculations to its Estate Planning QuickView, to be followed by Estate Planning Tools and other programs in 2007.

Steve Leimberg and Vince Lackner formally introduced DecoupleCruncher, a standalone state estate tax calculator based on the FileMaker platform that will be marketed by Leimberg Associates, and the Lackner Group.  This calculator will address individual state estate calculations for decoupled states, including a detailed display of the background calculations.  It performs the allocation of state estate taxes among multiple states, calculates the optimized marital deduction and does both the basic circular state estate tax calculation when the state tax is charged to the marital deduction, and the additional circular calculation when the will calls for charges both federal estate tax and state tax to the marital deduction.  It also computes the estate tax advantage of lifetime gifts. 

Financial Planning Programs

Here is a sampling of the financial planning programs exhibited at Heckerling:

Brentmark Software, Inc. introduced its revised and updated Retirement Income Navigator.  This program is designed to manage money during retirement when funds are being drawn out.  It helps assess an appropriate balance between interest bearing securities and equities.  The publisher offers a number of reports and tutorials for your review.

Lawgic has indicated that it will be releasing new wills and trusts products for New Jersey and Tennessee.  The publisher’s Florida probate system is scheduled for launch in 2007.

Thomson/West's Drafting Wills and Trust Agreements on GhostFill, version 4.0, offers increased content and enhanced functionality.  Highlights include a new qualified personal residence trust, redevelopment of the charitable remainder trust documents, and addition of user-defined documents functionality, allowing users to import their own documents into the system.  Also included are “Guidelines for Executors, Trustees and Agents Acting Under a Power of Attorney,” enhancements to the document manager functionality, allowing users to track documents created in the system and system utilities enhancements, including system backup functionality and client archiving.  Changes to the interface offer better descriptions of share/trust selections and increased formatting flexibility in document output.

WealthCounsel has implemented the transition of conduit trusts to accumulation trusts in its "Retirement Trust" library.  The interview for joint revocable trust plans now includes ancillary documents for both spouses. It has expanded its "Irrevocable Trust" options to include irrevocable life insurance trusts designed to hold a second-to-die life insurance policy and implemented business succession documents, including a buy-sell agreement and a deferred compensation agreement.  New, also, are built-in plan designs throughout the system, allowing for more efficient data entry and document generation.

With respect to gift/estate tax return preparation programs, FASTER Systems, LLC has added New York and Connecticut estate tax modules, including applications for an extension to file and pay state-level estate tax.  The publisher asserts that their FASTER ASP is the only fiduciary accounting and estate/gift tax software available in a secure, online, hosted environment.

Thomson’s Fasttax program now offers state death tax formats for Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The Gillett Estate Management Suite (GEMS) now gives you the ability to interface with Quicken so as to import assets and transactions from financial institutions and brokerage accounts directly into the GEMAcct fiduciary accounting module.  As a result, both the accounting and federal estate tax return modules can be populated with this data.  The GEM706 module now has state modules for Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin.  The publisher anticipates adding at least five more state modules to the GEMS program this year.  For the Illinois and Wisconsin state modules, GEM706 performs the double circular interrelated calculation involving those state death taxes.

Other Programs

These programs have added facilities to help you with file organization and data handling:

Lucion Technologies offers File Professional 4.0 “paperless office” software, which conducts indexing functions and document management and scanning to assist in converting, organizing and finding files.  It allows for automated, scheduled, document scanning and indexing including conversion of image files, such as pictures (in TIF, JPG and other formats).  It also creates image-only PDF files using a scanner and searchable PDFs.

Trusts & Estates magazine is pleased to present the monthly Technology Review by Donald H. Kelley—a respected connoisseur of software and Internet resources wealth management advisors use to further their practices.

Kelley is a lawyer living in Highlands Ranch, Colo. and is of counsel to the law firm of Kelley, Scritsmier & Byrne, P.C. of North Platte, Neb. He is the co-author of Intuitive Estate Planner Software (Thomson - West 2004).  He has served on the governing boards of the American Bar Association Real Property, Probate and Trust Section and the American College of Tax Counsel.  He is a past regent and past chair of the Committee on Technology in the Practice of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.