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11 Prob. Notes. 1 (1985-1986)

handle is hein.journals/acteclj11 and id is 1 raw text is: ACPC Probate Notes THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PROBATE COUNSEL*10964 West Pico Boulevard-Los Angeles, California 90064 Gerald LeVan, Editor/Waller H. Horsley, Asst. Editor/ American College of Probate Counsel 1985 Volume 11, No. I Spring-Summer 1985 President's Message Best selling writer George Gilder, in his Trachtman Lecture at our annual ACPC meeting in Phoenix in March, wryly observed that death and taxes \ are the only sure things in life, and probate lawyers may be the only persons to profit from both. We lawyers must inure ourselves to public cynicism about our motives. Is profit our primary goal? Is that why ACPC exists? ACPC publications, meetings and activities help us, as Fellows, to be more competent, better informed and more efficient. No organization can last long which fails to serve its members. But ACPC does much more. The improvement of our laws, federal and state, tax and non-tax, occupies more and more of ACPC talent, time and money. Some of these changes may appear to be contrary to our immediate best interests (e.g. increases in exemption equivalents; informal simplified probate), but have as their objective the only primary goal ACPC can have: serve the best interests of society. Our current efforts to revise Subchapter J of the Internal Revenue Code, the income taxation of estates and trusts, is an example. I confess I like the intricacies of Subchapter J. I can plan, draft and save money for clients better than many, perhaps most other lawyers in our community. My clients and I have a competitive edge. But is that just in a democratic society? If fair taxation with simpler rules is possible, shouldn't ACPC enthusiastically endorse it? I don't want to learn a new system of income taxation of trusts and estates, change my forms, and lose the results of many years of study and experience. But the question is: will a simpler and fair taxation system benefit the public? My answer: yes. I endorse the personal motto of Justice Holmes: When in doubt, do it! Those of us over 39, and holding, watch lawyers advertising on television with revulsion. Yet there is a larger message there. Our profession no longer is the only arbiter of what the public can be, or should be told. The public can decide. We will live to regret lawyers' monopoly of law business. We were lulled into tolerating probate procedures and tax systems that failed adequately to serve the public. Alternative methods of transfering wealth, not using lawyers or court systems, have developed and some of them work well. (Continued on page 3)

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