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One sample client

Check the numbers.

The sample client from the home page — age 74, New York, an $18M estate today — examined in full. Where the tax goes, the same decade charted with and without the plan, and what the Optimizer makes of it.

Age74
StateNew York
Estate today$18,000,000
Effective estate tax, no planning35.87%
With the plan8.53%
Where the tax goes

The installment sale is worth one and three-quarters of everything else.

The whole bar is the $11,335,868 this estate owes with no planning. The installment sale removes $5,505,131 of it; the other five strategies remove $3,135,076 between them — a ratio of 1.76 to 1. What is left, $2,695,661, is the tax the finished plan still pays.

QPRT — $1,231,800 Annual gifting — $348,421 Discounted gifting — $149,324 Life insurance trust — $218,909 Rolling GRATs — $1,186,622 Installment sale — $5,505,131 Estate tax that survives — $2,695,661
  • QPRT$1,231,800 · 10.9%
  • Annual gifting$348,421 · 3.1%
  • Discounted gifting$149,324 · 1.3%
  • Life insurance trust$218,909 · 1.9%
  • Rolling GRATs$1,186,622 · 10.5%
  • Installment sale$5,505,131 · 48.5%
  • Estate tax that survives$2,695,661 · 23.8%
The whole argument

Thirty-six percent, or nine.

One client, one ten-year horizon, modeled twice. The red is estate tax — federal above, New York below it. Everything else is what reaches the family.

EstateView timeline for the same client with no planning: assets growing to roughly $32M with a widening band of federal and New York estate tax above them, and an effective estate tax rate of 35.87%.
No planning. Bright red is federal estate tax, dark red New York; the green beneath is what reaches the family. Effective estate tax rate 35.87%. View full size
The same client with the full plan applied: the estate tax band reduced to a sliver, the estate distributed across a gift trust, installment sale trust, rolling GRAT and QPRT, and an effective estate tax rate of 8.53%.
The plan above, applied. What remains at death is $2,695,661 — New York’s $1,624,971 and $1,070,690 federal. The bands underneath are the trusts the plan builds. View full size
  • Federal estate tax
  • New York estate tax
  • Investments
  • Residence
  • Gift trust
  • Installment sale trust
  • Rolling GRAT
  • GRAT remainder
  • QPRT
  • Life insurance

Both rates divide by $31,601,186 — the estate net of the $600,000 insurance benefit — so only the tax moves between them.

Both charts assume the lifetime exemption is halved in 2030. That is a dial, not a forecast — pick any year, any percentage, or leave it alone. Plans get built against what might happen, not only against what is written today.

The second opinion

The Optimizer’s full run.

The Optimizer searches thousands of combinations of the strategies and requirements you chose, then reports what it found — the estate tax under each plan, and when the one you were about to recommend dips below the liquidity floor you set, nine years out.

Problematic constraints · your current plan
Investments fall below the $1,000,000 liquidity floor in 2035 — lowest: $327,146

Hand it a plan that overcommits and it names the year the assets run out and the size of the hole. The draft plan here sold $15,000,000 of assets out of a $16,000,000 account; the Optimizer refused it. Asked for better, it went through every combination that respected the floor.

Scenarios tested20,001
The savings it found$2,695,661 → $0
The result

Taken to zero, and what zero costs.

Told to keep $1,000,000 of liquidity at all times, it restructured the plan — a bypass trust and a SLAT in — and took the estate tax to zero: every dollar of the $2,695,661 goes to the family instead. Zero costs something, though. That structure leans on a $10,423,809 sale on a self-canceling note at 9.59%, which is a bet on mortality. The sample plan keeps a conventional note and settles for 8.53% tax.

Results Summary

Estate Tax Savings −$2,695,661$2,695,661 → $0
Additional to Heirs +$2,695,661$29,505,525 → $32,201,186

Problematic Constraints (Your Current Plan)

The following constraint(s) you set aren’t all met by your current plan:

Investments fall below the $1,000,000 liquidity floor in 2035 (lowest: $327,146)

Scenario Comparisons

Scenario Estate tax
before		 Estate tax
after		 Tax
savings		 Net to heirs
before		 Net to heirs
after		 Heirs
gain
No planning (dies year 1) $3,123,648$3,123,648$0 $16,359,352$16,359,352$0
With planning (dies year 1) $1,841,905$0−$1,841,905 $17,641,095$19,483,000+$1,841,905
No planning (full timeline) $11,335,868$11,335,868$0 $20,865,318$20,865,318$0
With planning (full timeline) $2,695,661$0−$2,695,661 $29,505,525$32,201,186+$2,695,661

Run Details

Min liquidity$1,000,000held from year 2026
Scenarios evaluated20,001in 178.9 seconds

Strategies Elected

Bypass trust$10,780,000 (max)
QPRT7 years, 51% of the residence
Annual gifting2 donees for 10 years, then 1; grantor off in year 9
Discounted gifting100% of gifts discounted
Large gift / SLAT$4,149,537
Installment sale$10,423,80910-year SCIN · AFR 4.77% + 4.82% premium = 9.59% · grantor: spouse 1
Rolling GRATs$536,987 · 8-year rolling · increasing 20%

Reproduced from the run, figure for figure — the original screenshot.

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