The estate tax code in the United States has a bit of a loophole.  The way the code is written right now, the tax lessens every year until 2009, and then disappears completely in 2010, only to go back to a higher level in 2011.

We recently spoke with James Cohen, partner at the firm Kleinberg, Kaplan, Wolff and Cohen, P.C.  He has spoken about this issue with many people, including Joe Lieberman, who he knows well.  When speaking with Mr. Lieberman, he joked about how the loophole in the Estate Tax Code could cause some problems.  The two spoke seriously about the fact that it could cause murders to go up that year.

For instance, if someone has an elderly parent with a large estate and they die, usually the estate is taxed up to 50%.  If this happens in 2010, that tax is zero.  And who knows what some people will do to get at all of that extra money.  Along those same lines, if a person is sick and near death in 2009, there is a huge incentive to keep the person alive until the next year.  The best thing that Washington can do is to take a long hard look at the tax code and revise it to better fit the year 2010.

Enjoy the video with James Cohen below and look for his upcoming CLE program on Lawline.com entitled Legal Aspects of Appraisals of Tangible Personal Property.