Estate Tax and the New York Bar Exam

The following information comes by way of Robert G. Nassau, Adjunct Professor and Co-Director of the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic Office of Clinical Legal Education at the Syracuse University College of Law"

According to the irrefutably reliable BarBri (and verified by the somewhat hard-to-read webpage of the New York State Board of Bar Examiners), Federal estate tax will no longer be tested on the New York State Bar Exam, effective with the upcoming February 2006 Exam.

However, New York State estate tax will continue to be a "testable" subject.

Because New York State estate tax IS Federal estate tax (albeit with a lower annual exclusion amount), this appears to create the anomalous situation of an examinee having to learn an area of law that won't be on the Bar Exam in order to learn an area of law that will be on the Bar Exam.

Even stranger is the prospect of New York students having to learn an area of law that no longer exists (if the Federal estate tax is repealed), in order to be prepared for the Bar Exam, because the New York State estate tax shows absolutely no signs of extinction.