Module 1 — Probate & Taxes

Module 1 establishes the legal and tax foundation for everything that follows in this course. Before an agent can understand wealth transfer planning tools and strategies, they must understand what constitutes a person’s estate, how property passes at death, and how federal and state governments tax that transfer.

The important points addressed in this module are:

• What constitutes a person’s taxable estate and how it differs from the probate estate
• The rights individuals hold in property and how those rights affect transfer at death
• The principal methods by which property passes from a decedent to heirs
• The unified federal transfer tax system, including the gift tax and estate tax
• The annual gift tax exclusion and its uses in lifetime planning
• Federal estate tax rates, exemptions, and portability between spouses
• The generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax
• State-level estate and inheritance taxes