Announcing The New Subscription Addition to State of Estates

More content and access for you

Note: If you want to sign up right away without reading through the pomp and circumstance, scroll to the bottom. Otherwise, read on for my announcement.

July 13, 2020.

This is a day I will never forget. In the midst of the uncertainty of the pandemic, I took a leap to publish a 6-minute video on YouTube discussing a recent IRS Private Letter Ruling that I found interesting.

Three and a half years later, I find myself having built that educational channel into 330+ videos with almost 850 subscribers and countless other casual listeners. The total hours viewed rivals that of most major podcasts in the estate planning space.

About 14 months into that endeavor, I launched this newsletter in response to requests from my YouTube audience for more in-depth explanations. Now, over two years later, I have built this newsletter to over 500 subscribers and countless other occasional readers.

In fall of 2023, a friend, Phil Strassler, suggested I start hosting office hours. While my year-end schedule only allowed me the time to host three sets of office hours, all were wildly successful.

If you are reading this, I owe my success to you. Originally I started these efforts as a way to land speaking gigs in a post-pandemic world. At Heckerling in 2020, I heard a story about one of the speakers commanding a $10,000 per appearance speaking fee which made me think, “I can do that.” But, in a twist of fate, I discovered that my audience and reach grew much faster and more meaningfully through my digital efforts than it would have through live or virtual presentations. My digital efforts saved me from the specious life as a jet-setting talking head that I had originally idealized.

I have poured major chunks of the last 3 years of my life into thought leadership - for free. But, my dream all along was to monetize. Part of this is out of necessity, as some things I want to teach have to be kept behind a paywall to limit public access. Another part is the desire to innovate in the continuing education space, in which providers charge sometimes exorbitant amounts for low-quality material. So, if you want to support these outcomes, I encourage you to upgrade to a paid subscription.

Why should I subscribe?

Now, before I go on, I know that some of you follow me because what I do is offered for free and you would prefer that I stay that way. The good news is that the frequency and quality of free content will not change, including free office hours at least once per month. I will not change. Free subscribers and casual readers will still get the same high-quality information they are used to. But as I mentioned above, there are several things I want to write and teach about that I simply cannot put out to the general public.

For example, to supplement my GST tax and portability series, I have gotten several requests for how-to guides about completing tax returns. This is information that can easily be misapplied by a layperson if it is not contained behind a paywall. I get e-mails almost daily from people asking for tax return advice relating to just a handful of videos I published years ago about obscure IRS forms.

So, the primary expansion of the paid subscription will be more practical hands-on guides to wealth transfer planning and tax reporting, supplemented by more frequent office hours.

Some of the new series and offerings I have already announced, including:

• The SLAT series - a comprehensive breakdown of the use cases, nuances, and pitfalls of spousal lifetime access trusts

• The ABCs of Trusts - an intro to common trust principles, followed by breakdowns of use cases, nuances, and pitfalls of most of the routine and exotic trusts used in estate, tax, and asset protection planning

• Live and recorded courses to be offered for continuing education credit, towards the end of 2024 (although my hope is that you find enough value in what I provide that CE credit is not your driving force to consume my content)

Other pending series include, but are not limited to:

• C and S corporations, and partnerships, for practitioners who are not tax attorneys

• Basic, intermediate, and advanced principles surrounding grantor trusts

• M&A for estate planners

• When/if finalized, comprehensive overviews of the new SECURE Act regulations and anti-clawback regulations

• Completing Form 706, both for taxable estates and portability elections

• Completing Form 709, in general and for each of the specific types of trusts

• Mechanics and how-to guides for determining and administering GST-exempt and GST-nonexempt trusts

• The early career advisor’s guide to Code Sections 2036 and 2038

• Buy-sell agreements

These articles will be supplemented with videos, audio, sample materials, and other practice guides - similar to what I did with this set of materials on the Corporate Transparency Act but without the firehose approach.

And, of course, there will be broader office hours. While I will still host free office hours, the free sessions will alternate monthly between group sessions and limited one-on-one sessions. Paid subscribers will get more routine office hours, with other community-building opportunities.

All of this can be yours for:

• $30 per month, or

• $300 annually (saving you $60 per year over the monthly subscription).

You can cancel anytime, but Substack does not appear to prorate prepaid subscriptions in the event of cancellation. So, if you get billed on the first of the month and then decide to cancel on the second day of the month, you would still pay for that month.

If I sign up and don’t like what I see, can I get a refund?

Unfortunately, I have to take a hardline stance to this and say no. Why? Because I am not guaranteeing results. I can and will continue to help educating you, but it is up to you to determine what you get out of your subscription.

How do I sign up?

At the bottom of this article, and on each paid article, there will be a prompt to create a free subscription or upgrade to a paid subscription. By following that prompt, you can create a paid account and cancel if and when you need.

What if I can’t afford the monthly or yearly subscription?

I plan to have occasional promotions, By promoting my newsletter as an ambassador, or contributing, I can offer discounts. Please reach out if you are interested.

If you are part of a firm, I offer group discounts of 20% per subscriber. So, if you can’t personally afford the subscription, your firm can purchase subscriptions for you and your colleagues.

And, while I reserve the right to be extremely selective in who I work with and promote, sponsorship opportunities are available as well. With sponsorship, I can offer free subscriptions. Likewise, I offer consulting and helpdesk relationships for select advisors and CPAs - those who separately subscribe to these services will gain subscription access.

Also, by signing up for a year, you get a 16.67% discount over the monthly subscription - which can be stacked with the group discount.

So, what’s next?

Sign up below if you are interested. In the meantime, as I mentioned above, I will continue to serve you - whether you choose to be a paid subscriber, a free subscriber, or not a subscriber at all.

And, to prove it, here are my next office hours for everyone. We can discuss anything, including subscription questions:

For one-on-one office hours on January 16, click here.

For group office hours at 1 EST/10 PST on January 17, click here.

And, most importantly, thank you for supporting me.

If you are not yet a subscriber at all and would like to subscribe (paid or free), click here:

And, if you would like to upgrade, click here: