Estate Plan Plus - Apr/May '00

Estate Plan Plus 3.0

ProBATE Software has released an updated version of its estate-planning program designed to ease the workload of estate practitioners. Version 3.0 of Estate Plan Plus provides practitioners with the ability to analyze a variety of common planning techniques (usable in a multitude of combinations) to help create the best plan for their clients.

The program opens by giving users the choice to either use an existing project or create a new one. If you use ProBATE Software's Visual Estate Plus, you can also opt to either run Visual Estate Plus or to import the Visual Estate Plus data. Creating a new project brings up two additional options: to apply date of death values before or after planning techniques, or to create a plan for one or two clients. This allows for effective pre- and post-death planning.

You begin by detailing client information such as personal profiles, description of assets, life insurance, pension and other retirement packages, liabilities and past taxable gifts. ProBATE Software's Estate Plan Plus 3.0 allows you to create up to 10 estate plan variations per client. This enables you to use the first plan as their current plan. You can then suggest the implementation of changes and variations in distribution schemes, and from the reports you create, your clients can quickly see the differences between their plans.

Estate Plan Plus isn't for the weak of heart -- it covers all the toughest estate planning topics. The program's seven basic planning techniques include division of asset ownership, a gift program, discounted gifts, charitable trusts, grantor trusts, life insurance trusts and distribution of assets at death.

The power of this package lies not only in the placement of its data, but also in its ability to easily manipulate that data for the benefit of weighing a variety of planning devices. For example, it's possible to adjust asset ownership, demonstrate the impact of the creation of an irrevocable life insurance trust, calculate estate residues (with or without optimum marital deductions), and provide the impact of a variety of grantor trusts GRITs, GRATs and/or QPRTs.

For me, the beauty was in the level of complexity I wanted to achieve. For the simpler estates, for example, I could create a few plans with the more commonly used devices and clients could understand the results. When I put together a more complex plan that involved a sizable amount of different types of life insurance, a family-owned business, a charitable remainderman and multi-generational distributees, my client appreciated the presentation of a complete picture.

The program includes a number of built-in tests to ascertain whether an estate is eligible for particular devices. Examples include family-owned businesses, GST exemptions, special-use valuations or installment payment of tax. Further, you can easily review the impact of various charitable devices, such as testamentary dispositions or inter vivos trusts. Within each of these options, you can also choose between remainder annuities, remainder unitrusts, lead annuities or lead unitrusts.

Any estate planning package is only as good as the reports that it produces. Estate Plan Plus combines detailed text, personal data with graphs, charts, and tables, to organize and present the information in a complete package. The reports were as professional looking as I could have wanted, both in color and in black-and-white.

Finally, the program incorporates an online user guide which includes not only technical information about the operation of the program, but detailed descriptions of the theories behind each planning device. I found the ability to quickly refresh my recollection of the applicable tax law to be a valuable plus in this planning package.

ProBATE Software Inc.
(800) 288-9169
www.probate-software.com

Windows 95/98/NT

$895; includes updates for one year

Reviewed By Denise Ward, attorney, Grean & Ward, Port Chester, N.Y.

April/May '00 Issue

PROS
Covers simple to complex plans; creates professional reports.

CON
Complicated for some users.

VERDICT
Includes planning techniques and guidelines practitioners need to create the best plans for their clients.