• Find ways to incorporate changing exemption amounts in your estate plan. Many estate planning documents indicate that trusts should be funded with assets equal to the estate tax exemption amount or generation-skipping transfer tax exemption amount. Evaluate whether those amounts are still appropriate considering their current high levels. Those amounts may leave more than intended to certain heirs or may place so much in a credit shelter or other trust that your spouse may receive very little of your estate outright. You may want to set a cap on the amounts placed in trust, even if that means you won't fully utilize your exemption amounts.

• Make sure you have enough solely owned assets to fund these trusts. Once you have decided how much should be placed in trust, make sure you have sufficient assets titled in your own name. Assets that you own jointly with your spouse or another individual will automatically go to that person, rather than to the trust, after death.

• Consider adding a disclaimer provision to your estate planning documents. This provision details what will happen if one of your heirs disclaims his/her inheritance. That way, your heirs can decide after your death how much should be placed in various trusts. For instance, a husband can leave all his assets to his wife with the condition that any disclaimed assets go into a trust paying her income for life, then passing the principal to their children after her death. This gives the wife the opportunity to divide assets based on her needs and wishes at the time of her husband's death.

• Review your gifting strategies. You may still want to continue gifting strategies to utilize your annual gift tax exclusion ($13,000 in 2009 or $26,000 if the gift is split with your spouse) and your lifetime gift tax exclusion amount. For those with estates large enough to be subject to estate taxes, these strategies remove assets from your taxable estate without paying any gift taxes. When using your lifetime exemption amount of $1,000,000, look for ways to maximize your tax-free gift. For instance, individuals who transfer noncontrolling interests in businesses, farms, real estate, and other assets during their lifetime may be able to assign a minority interest discount to the gift's value. By gifting assets to certain types of trusts, such as qualified personal residence trusts and grantor retained annuity trusts, you can place an asset in trust now, retain use of the asset for a period of time, and assign a lower value to the gift.

• Consider making charitable contributions during your lifetime. While charitable contributions made after death are free of estate taxes, that may not be a consideration due to higher exemption amounts. Charitable contributions made during your lifetime will still lower your taxable estate, and you receive an income tax deduction currently.

• Reevaluate your life insurance needs. Since the estate tax will only be repealed for the year 2010, you may still want life insurance to help your heirs pay estate taxes. Even if you die in the year 2010, any inherited assets will not receive a step-up in basis, perhaps leaving your heirs with a large capital gains tax burden.

• Review how specific assets are distributed. In 2010, inherited property will have a basis equal to the lesser of the decedent's adjusted basis or the property's fair market value at the decedent's date of death, with three exceptions: 1) $1,300,000 of basis can be added to assets. 2) Unused capital losses, net operating losses, and certain built-in losses can increase this cap. 3) An additional $3,000,000 of basis can be added to assets inherited by a surviving spouse. Due to these exceptions, you may want to specifically allocate assets with low bases to your spouse and assets with a higher bases to other heirs to ensure the step-up in basis is maximized.

• Go over your entire estate plan at least every three years. No matter how much flexibility is built into your estate plan, you should still thoroughly review your plan every three years or so. Even if there are no major changes in the estate tax law or your personal situation, such as a marriage, death, divorce, or birth, gradual changes in your situation, such as an increasing net worth or a decline in your investment portfolio, may make changes to your estate plan necessary.