Many individuals review their estate plans at the beginning of each new year.
Because 1997 was a year of significant change to certain provisions of the federal estate and gift tax laws, we felt it would be appropriate to highlight some of those changes for you. This Newsletter is not intended to provide an in-depth explanation and analysis of the Act and its consequences to your personal estate plan, but rather to simply highlight the most important federal estate and gift tax provisions of the Act and discuss how those provisions might apply to the most common estate planning situations. The Act increases this exemption gradu-ally over a period of years. Obviously, the increase reduces the potential estate and gift taxes as the exemption amount increases are phased in. Increases in the underlying value of stocks, bonds, and other assets may well offset the projected increases in the exemption amounts.