Gregory Herman-Giddens, Esq., an attorney and certified financial planner, writes the North Carolina Estate Planning Blog, a good source of news from the estate planning arena. On August 5th, Gregory blogged about his prediction for upcoming legislative events involving the federal estate tax. He says the prediction is based on “inside sources”, and it does sound like a likely outcome.

According to Greg’s sources, there will be no action on the estate tax this year until late December.  At that time, facing the year 2010 when there will be no estate tax whatsoever under current law, Congress will enact a one-year patch extending the current $3.5 million exemption through 2010.  Then, in 2011, the exemption will drop to $1 million, with no action from Congress necessary. The resulting increase in estate taxes, along with the coming increases in income taxes, will help pay for health care reform. Sounds like a likely result, right? We will see . . . Thank you Greg for your interesting insight.