EUGENE ESTATE PLANNING COUNCIL

Sam Donaldson, J.D. will present “Tax Planning Strategies That Make Sense Today and Tomorrow”: Given recent and anticipated changes to the federal income and transfer taxes, how are estate planning professionals advising their clients who want to plan now even though the only thing we know for sure is that the laws will change? This session will cover expected changes to the law and will present techniques that advisors should consider now and in the long term. Specific topics to be discussed include whether to make large gifts in 2021, creating non-grantor trusts to defer or avoid state income tax, using charitable remainder trusts as retirement planning vehicles, and maximizing the step-up in basis.

Samuel A. Donaldson, J.D. University of Arizona; LL.M. (Taxation) University of Florida, is a Professor of Law at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Prior to joining the Georgia State faculty in 2012, he was on the faculty at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle for 13 years. During his tenure at the University of Washington, he was a five-time recipient of the Philip A. Trautman Professor of the Year award from the School of Law’s Student Bar Association. Professor Donaldson served for two years as Associate Dean for Academic Administration and for six years as the Director of the law school’s Graduate Program in Taxation. He teaches a number of tax and estate planning courses, as well as courses in the areas of property, commercial law and professional responsibility.

Professor Donaldson is an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and a member of the Bar in Washington, Oregon, and Arizona. Among his scholarly works, he is a co-author of the popular West casebook, Federal Income Tax: A Contemporary Approach, and a co-author of the Price on Contemporary Estate Planning treatise published by Wolters Kluwer. Professor Donaldson has served as the Harry R. Horrow Visiting Professor of International Law at Northwestern University and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

An amateur crossword constructor, his puzzles have been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets. A perennial contender for People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” honor, Professor Donaldson was recently notified by email of his selection to receive substantial sums of money from high-level Nigerian business officials in exchange for his bank account information.