Populism is a joke -- on us.

[dawg]

74. Unless your estate is valued over $5,250,000, the trust would be pointless for you anyway.

So you probably don't get any credit for not having one of those.

(But if you do have that much, then good for you.)

For what it's worth, I do know a thing or two about taxes. Most taxpayers don't even have enough deductions to make it worthwhile for them to itemize. But for those who do, I would never criticize them for taking advantage of legitimate deductions that are provided for in the tax code.

And, whether we approve of it or not, the estate planning techniques being used by the Clintons are well within what the law allows. I don't know all of their specific details, but typically these trusts involve making a current gift of a portion of the ownership rights to the residence. The couple will then file gift tax returns to report the value of the gift, and any taxes due will be paid with the gift tax returns. Typically, there is enough estate tax credit to absorb the taxable amount of the gift without forcing an actual payment of cash. But the couple's estate tax exemption will be permanently reduced by the amount of credit used, so theoretically that might mean paying more estate tax later. The couple is essentially gambling that the value of the property will rise, so by "paying" the tax now instead of later, the total tax will be less.

Such a plan could actually backfire, but it isn't likely.

Where things get really tricky is coming up with the number used to represent the current fair market value of the ownership interests that were gifted. This is where rich people sometimes get way too .... "creative". (And I *would* fault someone for that.) But not knowing the details of the Clintons' transaction, I have no way of judging whether their valuation was reasonable or not.