On December 17, 2010, President Obama signed H.R. 4853, the Middle Class Tax Relief Act of 2010, into law. This legislation extends the Bush-era Tax Cuts and it brings back the federal estate tax for two years at tax rate of 35% and with an exemption of $5 million.  It makes a number of other dramatic changes to wealth transfer taxes. Hani Sarji, author of Estate of Confusion, has created two excellent charts summarize these changes. For those of you looking for a quick reference source, these charts are worth holding on to.

In this blog post Mr. Sarji provides the following chart comparing the Estate, Gift and GST Tax rules in 2010 with those applicable in 2011.

In this blog post Mr. Sarji provides the following chart comparing the gift tax rules for 2010 with the new gift tax rules applicable in 2011 and 2012.