BarbriSFCourseDetails
  • videocam Live Webinar with Live Q&A
  • calendar_month April 21, 2026 @ 1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
  • signal_cellular_alt Intermediate
  • card_travel Estate Planning
  • schedule 90 minutes

Estate Planning for Unmarried Cohabiting Couples: Legal and Tax Issues, Best Practices for Estate Planners

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$297.00
$252.45
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Discount expires 4/8/26

This course is $0 with these passes:

CLE
CPE
ALL
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About the Course

Introduction

This CLE/CPE webinar will provide estate planners a detailed analysis of key legal and tax considerations for structuring estate plans for unmarried cohabiting couples. The panel will discuss strategies to reduce income, gift, and estate tax liability and provide an analysis of key issues that arise as well as offer strategies to ensure the best results. The panel will provide guidance for using gifting, trusts, title transfers, and other options to pass assets to desired beneficiaries and the necessary directives that unmarried couples should have in place.

Description

The number of unmarried couples choosing to live together prior to or in lieu of marriage has increased in recent years. Estate planners must recognize the legal and tax issues that arise for these couples and plan accordingly.

Spouses can gift unlimited amounts without using their estate and gift tax exemption, while unmarried individuals are limited annually. Similarly, there is an unlimited estate tax marital deduction between spouses and portability, allowing one taxpayer to benefit from both spouses' estate tax exclusion.

For unmarried cohabitants, knowing that their assets will be distributed to the people they choose is key. Utilizing gifts, trusts, title transfers, and other mechanisms to pass assets to desired beneficiaries and the necessary directives that unmarried cohabitants should have in place is critical to achieve optimum results.

Estate planners working with these individuals need to understand the choices available for bequests and how they affect potential estate tax liability.

Listen as our panel discusses gifting and estate tax options available to help alleviate legal and tax concerns of unmarried cohabitants.

Presented By

Avigail Goldglancz
Counsel
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

Ms. Goldglancz focuses her practice on estate and tax planning, including estate succession, gift and generation skipping transfers, charitable giving and international tax advice, and planning for cross-border investments, wealth transfer and asset protection, estate and trust administration, and estate and probate litigation. Her practice also focuses on tax optimization strategies designed specifically for founders, investors and executives, including strategies to minimize capital gains tax, state taxes and estate taxes, and to protect her client’s assets. Ms. Goldglancz has been recognized by Best Lawyers as One to Watch since 2021. She is editor-in-chief of the Trusts & Estates Law Section Journal of the New York State Bar Association, and is admitted to practice law in New York, New Jersey and Texas.

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John S. Kiely
Of Counsel
Blank Rome LLP

Mr. Kiely focuses his practice on advising high-net-worth individuals and families on a full range of estate planning and gift planning issues, including the preparation of wills, revocable trusts, spousal lifetime access trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, life insurance trusts and qualified personal residence trusts. He frequently lectures on diverse estate planning topics, such as surveys of the estate and gift tax system, gift planning for qualified small business stock under Section 1202, the income tax aspects of estate planning, international estate planning, options for illiquid estates with significant estate tax liabilities, and proposed legislative and regulatory actions that could affect wealthy individuals and families.

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Arielle Lederman, JD, LL.M
Senior Wealth Advisor and Wealth Strategist
AdvicePeriod

Ms. Lederman, J.D., LL.M., is a Senior Wealth Advisor and Wealth Strategist with AdvicePeriod. Her primary focus is working with ultra-high-net-worth individuals to advise those clients and their families with respect to income, gift and estate planning transactions. Ms. Lederman has over a decade of experience in the legal sector and has advised clients around the world and across industries on a variety of complex tax and estate planning transactions. She has a deep technical understanding of trust and tax law but takes a practical approach to tax and estate planning that clients greatly appreciate.

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Credit Information

  • This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.

  • CPE credit is not available on recordings.

  • BARBRI is a NASBA CPE sponsor and this 90-minute webinar is accredited for 1.5 CPE credits.

  • BARBRI is an IRS-approved continuing education provider offering certified courses for Enrolled Agents (EA) and Tax Return Preparers (RTRP).


  • Live Online


    On Demand

Date + Time

  • event

    Tuesday, April 21, 2026

  • schedule

    1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT

I. Overview of planning challenges for unmarried couples

II. Tax implications

A. Income taxes

B. Gift taxes

C. Estate and inheritance taxes

III. Legal considerations

A. Retirement accounts

B. Beneficiary designations

C. Wills and trusts

D. Incapacity

IV. State considerations

The panel will review these critical issues:

  • What are the estate planning challenges for unmarried couples?
  • What are the income, gift, and estate tax implications?
  • What gifting strategies are available to transfer assets to desired beneficiaries?
  • What are the inequities between married and unmarried taxpayers in the estate and gift tax regime?
  • Best practices for estate planners when establishing plans for unmarried cohabiting couples


Learning Objectives

After completing this course, you will be able to:

  • Identify unmarried taxpayers who would benefit from a revocable living trust
  • Ascertain differences in the estate tax treatment of married and unmarried cohabitants
  • Determine specific directives single individuals should have in place
  • Decide how to implement gifting strategies to transfer assets as desired
  • Field of Study: Taxes
  • Level of Knowledge: Intermediate
  • Advance Preparation: None
  • Teaching Method: Seminar/Lecture
  • Delivery Method: Group-Internet (via computer)
  • Attendance Monitoring Method: Attendance is monitored electronically via a participant's PIN and through a series of attendance verification prompts displayed throughout the program
  • Prerequisite:

    Three years+ business or public firm experience preparing complex tax forms and schedules, supervising other preparers or accountants. Specific knowledge and understanding of estate, gift and trust taxation including various trusts types, the unified credit, and portability.

BARBRI, Inc. is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of Accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE Credits. Complaints regarding registered sponsons may be submitted to NASBA through its website: www.nasbaregistry.org.

IRS Approved Provider

BARBRI is an IRS-approved continuing education provider offering certified courses for Enrolled Agents (EA) and Tax Return Preparers (RTRP).

BARBRI CE webinars-powered by Barbri-are backed by our 100% unconditional money-back guarantee: If you are not satisfied with any of our products, simply let us know and get a full refund. Contact us at 1-800-926-7926 .