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| Visual Estate Plus | Practice Specific |
Explaining estate tax planning devices such as the unified credit, charitable remainder and life insurance trusts can often leave clients dazed and confused. ProBate Software has recently released Visual Estate Plus, an estate planning program that creates packages that help practitioners illustrate these and other common estate planning devices. Any software program that eases these sessions is a welcome addition. I have tried all kinds of devices to explain estate planning devices to my clients, including blocks from my children's toy chests, paper clips of varying sizes and colors, and hastily drawn diagrams that I draw upside down as I explain the purpose of each box and arrow. Short of standing in front of a blackboard, there are no easy ways to explain such plans, and even then, I feel like I'm teaching calculus to 3rd graders. ProBate's Visual Estate Plus is a simple, easy-to-use program that, with a few mouse clicks, produces a professional picture of the devices you are proposing. Data entry follows a streamlined question and answer mode, with tabs directing entry of details regarding life insurance (up to 20 policies can be listed), pensions and IRAs (up to 20), cash, bank accounts, traded securities, notes and receivables, closely held businesses, real estate (including personal residence, other residential real estate and commercial real estate) as well other property including personalty. Of course, the program permits the allocation of ownership of assets between joint owners, and specifies whether the assets pass outright to the survivor. There are also selections available to illustrate the consequences of the creation of a charitable remainder trust, or the implementation of a lifetime gifting plan, or the restructuring of a closely held business into a family limited partnership. The program also includes an audio feature to accompany each planning device, presumably to assist the practitioner in explaining plans to the client. Although I found this particular feature somewhat superfluous, I did find the continuing education feature absolutely worthwhile. You can complete an eight-hour self study Continuing Professional Education (CPE) course; in some jurisdictions, this type of course is applicable to mandatory continuing education. Even without the CPE feature, the course is useful to refresh your knowledge of this sometimes complex tax area. Printing a visual estate plan is easy, but too much so because the ease-of-use limits the customization of printing packages. An entire estate plan, complete with text explaining the charts and diagrams to the client can run 20 or more pages. Not every planning device may be used, though, and there is no way to pick and choose among the devices your client's plan uses. Unfortunately, it's the entire package or nothing. Therefore, the package presented to the client looks canned--exactly what you don't want when doing estate planning. |
ProBate Software $395 Reviewed by Denise P. Ward, Esq., Grean & Ward, Rye, N.Y. PROS CONS VERDICT |
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