[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":455},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-posts":3},[4,256],{"_path":5,"_dir":6,"_draft":7,"_partial":7,"_locale":8,"title":9,"description":10,"date":11,"bucket":12,"head":13,"body":18,"_type":250,"_id":251,"_source":252,"_file":253,"_stem":254,"_extension":255},"/blog/estate-planning-news-roundup-may-2026","blog",false,"en","Estate Planning News Roundup: May 2026 — What Law Firms Need to Know Right Now","Five estate planning news developments reshaping client conversations in May 2026 — the $15M federal exemption, formula clause traps, state tax shifts, and rising trust funding volume.","2026-05-11","news",{"title":14,"meta":15},"Estate Planning News Roundup: May 2026 — What Law Firms Need to Know Right Now | TrustFunding",[16],{"name":17,"content":10},"description",{"type":19,"children":20,"toc":237},"root",[21,29,36,41,46,51,57,62,67,72,77,82,88,93,98,103,109,114,119,124,130,135,140,145,151,181],{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":24,"children":25},"element","p",{},[26],{"type":27,"value":28},"text","If you've been heads-down drafting plans and funding trusts, here's a fast pass through the estate planning news 2026 developments that are already reshaping client conversations. From a permanently higher federal exemption to formula clause traps and state-level tax shifts, the next few months will generate real work — and real risk — for firms that aren't current.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":31,"children":33},"h2",{"id":32},"the-15-million-federal-exemption-is-now-permanent",[34],{"type":27,"value":35},"The $15 Million Federal Exemption Is Now Permanent",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":37,"children":38},{},[39],{"type":27,"value":40},"The biggest estate planning news of the year landed on July 4, 2025, when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was signed into law. The TCJA's enhanced estate and gift tax exemption — which had been scheduled to sunset at the end of 2025 back to roughly $7 million per person — was instead made permanent and raised. Beginning January 1, 2026, the federal unified estate and gift tax exemption is $15 million per individual, or $30 million for married couples using portability. Starting in 2027, the amount will be indexed for inflation.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":42,"children":43},{},[44],{"type":27,"value":45},"The practical effect: the \"use it or lose it\" urgency that drove a surge of gifting and trust-funding activity in late 2024 and early 2025 no longer applies in the same way. Clients who made substantial gifts to SLATs, dynasty trusts, or other irrevocable structures before the prior deadline should review those structures now that the exemption landscape has shifted. Clients who held off can still pursue tax-efficient planning — just without the prior time pressure.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":47,"children":48},{},[49],{"type":27,"value":50},"What hasn't changed: the gap between the federal exemption ($15 million) and many state-level exemptions (as low as $1 million in Oregon) means state estate tax planning remains critically important for clients with multistate assets or property in high-tax jurisdictions.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":52,"children":54},{"id":53},"your-clients-old-formula-clauses-may-be-misfiring",[55],{"type":27,"value":56},"Your Clients' Old Formula Clauses May Be Misfiring",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":58,"children":59},{},[60],{"type":27,"value":61},"This item deserves a dedicated client alert or review queue.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":63,"children":64},{},[65],{"type":27,"value":66},"Many wills and revocable trusts drafted under the TCJA — or even earlier — contain formula clauses that fund a credit shelter (bypass) trust \"up to the available federal exemption\" at death, with the remainder passing outright or into a marital trust. Under a $5–7 million exemption, this formula worked predictably. Under a $15 million exemption, it can produce unintended results.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":68,"children":69},{},[70],{"type":27,"value":71},"The problem: a formula clause that sweeps the full exemption into the bypass trust can unintentionally overfund that trust and underfund — or entirely eliminate — the marital share. This is particularly harmful when the bypass trust is structured to avoid a basis step-up at the surviving spouse's later death. Locking in carryover basis on $15 million in appreciated assets is a significant tax cost, and clients who originally signed these plans had no idea this outcome was possible.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":73,"children":74},{},[75],{"type":27,"value":76},"For law firms, any client plan containing a formula funding clause should be flagged for review. Disclaimer-based plans, QTIPable marital trusts with elective treatment, and carefully drafted powers of appointment are the tools practitioners are using to build in post-mortem flexibility. This is a document-review-and-amendment situation — not a passive wait-and-see.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":78,"children":79},{},[80],{"type":27,"value":81},"One note worth keeping in mind: once those amendments are signed — updated credit shelter provisions, revised trustee instructions, new beneficiary designations — they need to be funded correctly. An amended plan with stale title and outdated designations is still an unfunded plan.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":83,"children":85},{"id":84},"washington-state-rolls-back-its-top-estate-tax-rate",[86],{"type":27,"value":87},"Washington State Rolls Back Its Top Estate Tax Rate",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":89,"children":90},{},[91],{"type":27,"value":92},"Washington's estate tax made news earlier this year when Governor Ferguson signed legislation rolling back the state's top rate. Washington had temporarily raised its top marginal rate to 35% — the highest in the country — but that rate applied only through June 30, 2026. Effective July 1, 2026, Washington's estate tax reverts to its previous top rate of 20%.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":94,"children":95},{},[96],{"type":27,"value":97},"Washington still imposes an estate tax on estates exceeding $2.2 million, and the 20% top rate will remain the highest in the country (tied with Hawaii). Clients with Washington real property or domicile should understand that this is a rate reduction, not an exemption increase. The $2.2 million threshold is unchanged.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":99,"children":100},{},[101],{"type":27,"value":102},"For firms managing Washington estates or advising clients who own property in the state, the rollback is a welcome development — but it does not eliminate the planning gap between Washington's exemption and the federal level. Structures designed to reduce Washington estate tax exposure remain relevant.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":104,"children":106},{"id":105},"oregons-estate-tax-is-heading-to-the-ballot",[107],{"type":27,"value":108},"Oregon's Estate Tax Is Heading to the Ballot",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":110,"children":111},{},[112],{"type":27,"value":113},"Oregon currently imposes a state estate tax on estates exceeding $1 million — a threshold that hasn't changed since 2011, despite significant inflation over that period. The top marginal rate runs to 16% on larger estates. An initiative petition is actively seeking to place a measure on Oregon's November 2026 ballot that would repeal the state estate tax in full.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":115,"children":116},{},[117],{"type":27,"value":118},"The outcome is uncertain, but the trajectory is worth monitoring. If Oregon's estate tax is repealed, planning strategies specifically structured to reduce Oregon exposure — including irrevocable trusts designed to remove assets from the taxable estate before death — may need to be revisited in the context of clients' current plans.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":120,"children":121},{},[122],{"type":27,"value":123},"Separately, legislative proposals in Salem earlier this year sought to raise Oregon's $1 million exemption, though those efforts have not advanced to passage. Practitioners advising clients with Oregon property or Oregon domicile should track both the legislative and ballot-initiative tracks as the November election approaches.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":125,"children":127},{"id":126},"trust-funding-volume-is-rising-is-your-firm-ready",[128],{"type":27,"value":129},"Trust Funding Volume Is Rising — Is Your Firm Ready?",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":131,"children":132},{},[133],{"type":27,"value":134},"A consistent theme running through the 2026 estate planning news cycle: the field is growing. A recent industry survey found that 53% of firms already offering trust and estate planning services plan to expand their offerings this year, with the figure rising to 66% among firms managing more than $500 million in assets.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":136,"children":137},{},[138],{"type":27,"value":139},"The drivers are straightforward. A higher federal exemption makes trust planning accessible to a broader client base. Post-OBBBA document reviews are generating amendments that in turn create new funding needs. The persistent state-level planning gap keeps irrevocable structures in play for a wide swath of clients. All of this points in the same direction: more trusts drafted and executed this year, which means more funding work — deed transfers, account retitling, beneficiary designation updates — flowing to estate planning staff.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":141,"children":142},{},[143],{"type":27,"value":144},"The question is not whether the volume is coming. It is whether your firm has the infrastructure to handle it without absorbing the cost in unbilled staff hours.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":146,"children":148},{"id":147},"key-takeaways",[149],{"type":27,"value":150},"Key Takeaways",{"type":22,"tag":152,"props":153,"children":154},"ul",{},[155,161,166,171,176],{"type":22,"tag":156,"props":157,"children":158},"li",{},[159],{"type":27,"value":160},"The One Big Beautiful Bill Act permanently raised the federal estate and gift tax exemption to $15 million per person effective January 1, 2026, with no sunset provision. The prior TCJA sunset is off the table.",{"type":22,"tag":156,"props":162,"children":163},{},[164],{"type":27,"value":165},"Formula clauses in older wills and revocable trusts can unintentionally overfund a bypass trust under the higher exemption, creating carryover-basis problems — these documents need active review and possible amendment.",{"type":22,"tag":156,"props":167,"children":168},{},[169],{"type":27,"value":170},"Washington's estate tax top rate dropped from 35% to 20% effective July 1, 2026; the $2.2 million exemption threshold is unchanged.",{"type":22,"tag":156,"props":172,"children":173},{},[174],{"type":27,"value":175},"An Oregon ballot initiative could repeal the state's entire estate tax in November 2026; outcome is uncertain but worth tracking for clients with Oregon property.",{"type":22,"tag":156,"props":177,"children":178},{},[179],{"type":27,"value":180},"Trust funding volume is increasing across the industry — more plans drafted means more funding execution work, and firms without an efficient process will absorb that cost invisibly.",{"type":22,"tag":182,"props":183,"children":193},"div",{"className":184},[185,186,187,188,189,190,191,192],"not-prose","mt-10","rounded-2xl","bg-emerald-50","border","border-emerald-200","p-6","text-center",[194,196,208,209,217,218],{"type":27,"value":195},"\n  ",{"type":22,"tag":197,"props":198,"children":205},"h3",{"className":199,"id":204},[200,201,202,203],"text-xl","font-semibold","text-emerald-900","mb-2","ready-to-get-your-clients-trusts-funded",[206],{"type":27,"value":207},"Ready to get your clients' trusts funded?",{"type":27,"value":195},{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":210,"children":214},{"className":211},[212,213],"text-emerald-800","mb-4",[215],{"type":27,"value":216},"Partner with TrustFunding to take deed transfers, account retitling, and beneficiary updates off your plate.",{"type":27,"value":195},{"type":22,"tag":219,"props":220,"children":234},"a",{"href":221,"className":222,"ariaLabel":233},"https://meetings.hubspot.com/michael-rutkowski/new-client-meeting",[223,224,225,226,201,227,228,229,230,231,232],"inline-block","bg-emerald-600","hover:bg-emerald-500","text-white","px-8","py-3","rounded-lg","shadow-lg","shadow-emerald-900/20","transition","Book a Partnership Meeting with TrustFunding",[235],{"type":27,"value":236},"\n    Book a Partnership Meeting\n  ",{"title":238,"searchDepth":239,"depth":239,"links":240},"",2,[241,242,243,244,245,246],{"id":32,"depth":239,"text":35},{"id":53,"depth":239,"text":56},{"id":84,"depth":239,"text":87},{"id":105,"depth":239,"text":108},{"id":126,"depth":239,"text":129},{"id":147,"depth":239,"text":150,"children":247},[248],{"id":204,"depth":249,"text":207},3,"markdown","content:blog:estate-planning-news-roundup-may-2026.md","content","blog/estate-planning-news-roundup-may-2026.md","blog/estate-planning-news-roundup-may-2026","md",{"_path":257,"_dir":6,"_draft":7,"_partial":7,"_locale":8,"title":258,"description":259,"date":260,"bucket":261,"head":262,"body":266,"_type":250,"_id":452,"_source":252,"_file":453,"_stem":454,"_extension":255},"/blog/trust-funding-blended-families-case-study","What Actually Happens After You Sign Off on a Blended Family Trust Plan","Attorneys hand off the file and move on. Here's what the paralegal inherits—and what it actually costs the firm when no one tracks the hours.","2026-05-04","case-study",{"title":263,"meta":264},"What Actually Happens After You Sign Off on a Blended Family Trust Plan | TrustFunding",[265],{"name":17,"content":259},{"type":19,"children":267,"toc":442},[268,273,279,284,289,294,300,305,310,315,321,326,331,336,342,347,352,357,362,368,373,378,383,388,392,420],{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":269,"children":270},{},[271],{"type":27,"value":272},"You draft the plan, walk the clients through it, and hand it off. What happens next is something most attorneys never see—and it's costing your firm more than you realize when you're doing trust funding for blended families.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":274,"children":276},{"id":275},"the-plan-is-done-the-work-is-just-starting",[277],{"type":27,"value":278},"The Plan Is Done. The Work Is Just Starting.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":280,"children":281},{},[282],{"type":27,"value":283},"A typical blended family trust looks complete the moment the clients sign. Joint revocable trust, a separate ILIT for the life insurance policy, specific bequests to children from prior relationships. The attorney closes the meeting. Someone on staff gets the file.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":285,"children":286},{},[287],{"type":27,"value":288},"What that person now has is a list of assets that need to move. What they don't have is a roadmap for getting there. What follows is often weeks of calls to banks that route to trust departments that route to compliance that route back to the branch. Hunting down the right deed form for the specific county. Figuring out which assets go into the revocable trust and which have to stay out of the ILIT. Waiting on custodians who require a Certificate of Trust, then a Letter of Instruction, then a completed new account agreement—in that order, with a ten-business-day processing window on the back end.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":290,"children":291},{},[292],{"type":27,"value":293},"Nobody tells the paralegal any of this. They figure it out as they go, on a live client file.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":295,"children":297},{"id":296},"the-ilit-confusion-nobody-talks-about",[298],{"type":27,"value":299},"The ILIT Confusion Nobody Talks About",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":301,"children":302},{},[303],{"type":27,"value":304},"In one recent blended family matter, a paralegal flagged a rental property for transfer into the ILIT. It was an honest mistake: the file had two trusts, the rental was the husband's asset alone, and someone had written \"irrevocable trust\" next to it in the intake notes.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":306,"children":307},{},[308],{"type":27,"value":309},"Deeding real property into an ILIT is an irrevocable gift to the trust. Depending on the trust's terms, it can trigger gift tax reporting and complicate the analysis of whether the policy proceeds are excluded from the taxable estate. The drafting attorney never knew this was about to happen. It was caught in a second review pass, by someone who happened to know the difference.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":311,"children":312},{},[313],{"type":27,"value":314},"That's not a system. That's luck. And luck doesn't scale.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":316,"children":318},{"id":317},"the-joint-tenancy-problem-the-attorney-didnt-see",[319],{"type":27,"value":320},"The Joint Tenancy Problem the Attorney Didn't See",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":322,"children":323},{},[324],{"type":27,"value":325},"The couple's primary residence had been in joint tenancy since they bought it years ago. No one flagged it at intake—it didn't come up in the client meeting, and it wasn't in the asset checklist the attorney reviewed. The paralegal found it when pulling a title report weeks after the plan was signed.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":327,"children":328},{},[329],{"type":27,"value":330},"Joint tenancy passes by operation of law to the surviving co-owner at death, regardless of what the trust says. The trust document's specific directive—that the property go to the children from his first marriage—is legally unenforceable unless the title is changed before anyone dies. A new deed had to be prepared on the correct county form, executed by both spouses, and recorded.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":332,"children":333},{},[334],{"type":27,"value":335},"That deed prep and recording required three separate calls to the county recorder, one rejected filing, and a corrected form submission. It took roughly four hours. It doesn't show up on the invoice because no one thought to charge for it.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":337,"children":339},{"id":338},"the-account-that-almost-got-closed-without-retitling",[340],{"type":27,"value":341},"The Account That Almost Got Closed Without Retitling",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":343,"children":344},{},[345],{"type":27,"value":346},"The wife had a brokerage account titled in her individual name—an inheritance from her father that she'd retitled into her own name after his estate closed. Standard. Unremarkable.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":348,"children":349},{},[350],{"type":27,"value":351},"What wasn't standard: the custodian had a three-document retitling process. Letter of Instruction, New Account Agreement, and a Certificate of Trust confirming the trustees' authority to hold investment accounts. The trust services team quoted a ten-business-day processing window. Follow-up calls started on day eight.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":353,"children":354},{},[355],{"type":27,"value":356},"If no one had been actively tracking it, the file would have closed with that account still in her name. Her son's inheritance from that account—specifically directed in the trust—would have been legally unenforceable based on the trust document alone.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":358,"children":359},{},[360],{"type":27,"value":361},"The attorney's plan was fine. The plan just wasn't funded.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":363,"children":365},{"id":364},"what-this-is-actually-costing-your-firm",[366],{"type":27,"value":367},"What This Is Actually Costing Your Firm",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":369,"children":370},{},[371],{"type":27,"value":372},"The attorney billed for the plan. The funding work—the calls, the deed, the county recordings, the document chasing, the custodian follow-ups—happened somewhere in the background of the firm's calendar. A rough count for this matter: sixteen hours across a paralegal and a legal assistant over about six weeks.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":374,"children":375},{},[376],{"type":27,"value":377},"Sixteen hours of cost that wasn't priced into the engagement. Six weeks of open-file exposure. A plan that could have failed in three different ways if the right person hadn't caught each issue at the right moment.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":379,"children":380},{},[381],{"type":27,"value":382},"Most attorneys don't know this is happening. They hand off the file and trust that funding is getting done. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. When it isn't—or when it's done wrong—the liability lands back on the drafting attorney, not the paralegal who ran out of time.",{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":384,"children":385},{},[386],{"type":27,"value":387},"Blended family matters are a growing share of estate planning volume. This problem scales with them.",{"type":22,"tag":30,"props":389,"children":390},{"id":147},[391],{"type":27,"value":150},{"type":22,"tag":152,"props":393,"children":394},{},[395,400,405,410,415],{"type":22,"tag":156,"props":396,"children":397},{},[398],{"type":27,"value":399},"Trust funding for blended families involves multi-institution coordination, deed preparation, county recording, and careful asset-to-trust sorting—none of which is automatic, fast, or taught in any paralegal program.",{"type":22,"tag":156,"props":401,"children":402},{},[403],{"type":27,"value":404},"The risks aren't theoretical: joint tenancy overrides, wrong-trust asset transfers, and missed account retitling are real failure modes that create real malpractice exposure.",{"type":22,"tag":156,"props":406,"children":407},{},[408],{"type":27,"value":409},"The hidden hours are real: a typical blended family funding matter can consume 10–20 hours of staff time spread across weeks, most of it unbilled.",{"type":22,"tag":156,"props":411,"children":412},{},[413],{"type":27,"value":414},"Most attorneys have no idea this is what their staff is dealing with on every funded trust.",{"type":22,"tag":156,"props":416,"children":417},{},[418],{"type":27,"value":419},"A trust funding partner handles the execution—the calls, the deeds, the recordings, the follow-ups—so the file closes correctly and your staff isn't learning by doing on client matters.",{"type":22,"tag":182,"props":421,"children":423},{"className":422},[185,186,187,188,189,190,191,192],[424,425,430,431,436,437],{"type":27,"value":195},{"type":22,"tag":197,"props":426,"children":428},{"className":427,"id":204},[200,201,202,203],[429],{"type":27,"value":207},{"type":27,"value":195},{"type":22,"tag":23,"props":432,"children":434},{"className":433},[212,213],[435],{"type":27,"value":216},{"type":27,"value":195},{"type":22,"tag":219,"props":438,"children":440},{"href":221,"className":439,"ariaLabel":233},[223,224,225,226,201,227,228,229,230,231,232],[441],{"type":27,"value":236},{"title":238,"searchDepth":239,"depth":239,"links":443},[444,445,446,447,448,449],{"id":275,"depth":239,"text":278},{"id":296,"depth":239,"text":299},{"id":317,"depth":239,"text":320},{"id":338,"depth":239,"text":341},{"id":364,"depth":239,"text":367},{"id":147,"depth":239,"text":150,"children":450},[451],{"id":204,"depth":249,"text":207},"content:blog:trust-funding-blended-families-case-study.md","blog/trust-funding-blended-families-case-study.md","blog/trust-funding-blended-families-case-study",1779272095559]