$49.00
Webcasts are available for viewing Monday – Friday, 8am – 8pm ET,
and Saturday & Sunday, 10am – 6pm ET.
Without FlexCast, you must start with enough time to finish. (1 Hr/Credit)
Secure Transaction CPE Credits
1 Credits: Taxes
Course Level
Basic
Format
Webcast
Course Description
Estate plans fail in predictable ways: no plan at all, a plan that’s outdated, or a plan that ignores how assets actually transfer (beneficiary designations, retirement plans, life insurance, and non-probate property). In this 1-credit CPE webcast, Steven Siegel walks through the most common estate planning mistakes that create tax inefficiency, family conflict, and avoidable administration—then shows how to spot them and fix them before they turn into litigation, missed elections, or irreversible distributions.
You’ll cover practical review checkpoints (core documents, dispositive provisions, fiduciary selections, disability planning, and digital asset access), plus higher-impact technical issues: portability and timely Form 706 filings, life insurance ownership/beneficiary pitfalls, SECURE Act distribution traps, trust design choices, GST planning gaps, charitable substantiation and property-type rules, business succession and buy-sell valuation landmines, and income tax planning for trusts and estates (compressed brackets, the 65-day rule, DNI, and NIIT thresholds). The result is a clean framework for diagnosing estate planning breakdowns and implementing corrective strategies that hold up under real-world client complexity.
Learning Objectives
After completing this course, participants will be able to:
- Identify common estate planning “failure points,” including missing documents, outdated provisions, and non-probate transfer oversights.
- Evaluate portability and post-mortem decision requirements, including timing considerations and risks of failing to elect DSUE.
- Distinguish major beneficiary designation and distribution planning issues for life insurance and retirement accounts, including SECURE Act implications and trust-beneficiary tradeoffs.
- Apply corrective strategies for fiduciary/guardian selection problems, divorce and marital-right issues, and special needs beneficiary planning.
- Recognize planning gaps involving GST, charitable contributions, and business succession arrangements that can create unintended tax and valuation consequences.
- Identify key income tax planning opportunities for estates and trusts, including distribution timing techniques and avoidance of compressed trust tax brackets.
Course Specifics
WC1826464655
January 23, 2026
None
None
Compliance Information
IRS Provider Number: 0MYXB
IRS Course Number: 0MYXB-T-02769-26-O
IRS Federal Tax Law Credits: 1
CTEC Course Number: 2071-CE-02212
CTEC Federal Tax Law Credits: 1
CFP Notice: Not all courses that qualify for CFP® credit are registered by Western CPE. If a course does not have a CFP registration number in the compliance section, the continuing education will need to be individually reported with the CFP Board. For more information on the reporting process, required documentation, processing fee, etc., contact the CFP Board. CFP Professionals must take each course in it’s entirety, the CFP Board DOES NOT accept partial credits for courses.
CTEC Notice: California Tax Education Council DOES NOT allow partial credit, course must be taken in entirety. Western CPE has been approved by the California Tax Education Council to offer continuing education courses that count as credit towards the annual “continuing education” requirement imposed by the State of California for CTEC Registered Tax Preparers. A listing of additional requirements to register as a tax preparer may be obtained by contacting CTEC at P.O. Box 2890, Sacramento, CA, 95812-2890, by phone toll-free at (877) 850-2832, or on the Internet at www.ctec.org.
Meet The Experts
Steven G. Siegel, JD, LLM, is president of The Siegel Group, which provides consulting services to attorneys, accountants, business owners, family offices, and financial planners. Based in Morristown, New Jersey, the Group provides services throughout the United States. Steven is the author of many books, including: The Grantor Trust Answer Book (2018 CCH); The Adviser’s Guide to Financial and Estate Planning(AICPA 2019); Federal Fiduciary Income Taxation (Foxmoor 2019); and Federal Estate and Gift Tax (Foxmoor 2016). He is also a co-author with Richard Oshins, Esq. of The Anatomy of the Perfect Modern Trust, Estate Planning Magazine January and February 2016. In conjunction with numerous tax-planning lectures he has delivered …
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