VIEWPLAN From CCH Lets Planners Make Tax Assumptions, Work Faster

(RIVERWOODS, ILL., March 6, 2002) – Users of ViewPlan estate planning software from CCH INCORPORATED (CCH), a leading provider of tax law and financial and estate planning information and software, are now able to address the uncertainties surrounding the "repeal" of the estate tax in last year’s legislation and can produce plans faster and easier as a result of a number of new features in the program. (For additional information, call 1-800-449-8114 or visit tax.cchgroup.com.) A new tool called the Law Builder has been added to ViewPlan so that planners can deal with the "what-ifs" brought about by last year’s tax legislation.

"Currently, the repeal of federal estate taxes in 2010 is complicated further by the fact that the law changes in phases over the decade, and the legislation that does away with the tax is itself due to ‘sunset’ in 2011," said Gail Portugal, marketing manager for CCH’s Federal and State Tax group. "So naturally, estate planners should be considering a variety of scenarios that have never before confronted the industry."

"What if repeal is made permanent, what if the law is reversed to reflect the prior legislation, what if it’s ‘frozen’ at some future date, and so on. With ViewPlan, the Law Builder feature allows planners and their clients to consider almost any legislative possibility, and compare the estate tax consequences under different scenarios," Portugal said.

With the Law Builder, in addition to the rates specified by the latest tax legislation, users have total freedom to specify rates and exclusion amounts. It is also simple for users to examine scenarios using rates prior to the 2001 tax legislation changes, to illustrate scenarios assuming that legislation "sunsets" after 2010.

"For the foreseeable future, estate planning will involve a lot of ‘what-if’ thinking and exploration of what might happen given various possible legislative developments," said Portugal. "With ViewPlan, planners will be able to respond to whatever Congress and their clients present them with."

Three additional new features – the Scenario Shortcuts, Quick Plan and the CCH Client DataXchange^TM – now speed the work of ViewPlan users.

With the Scenario Shortcuts, planners have the ability to view a scenario and do quick "what-if" changes right in the same scenario. At the click of a mouse, they can make revisions such as reversing the order of deaths between the client and spouse, modifying the tax assumptions in the Law Builder, including or excluding gifts, and so on.

Quick Plan is a new efficiency tool that provides users with an easy way to quickly enter details about clients’ estates. With Quick Plan, information on multiple beneficiaries or assets can be entered on a single dialogue screen, rather than multiple screens.

The CCH Client DataXchange makes life easier for ViewPlan users who also use CCH Enteract ™ financial planning software or CCH ProSysten fx^® Tax, the premier tax compliance software. Client DataXchange eliminates the need to rekey data that has already been entered in any one of these three programs. This means that a ProSysten fx Tax user who purchases ViewPlan does not need to enter the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and so on of his or her tax clients. They can all be transferred effortlessly from the existing tax files.

ViewPlan from CCH provides practitioners with all the tools they need to accurately calculate and effectively present estate planning concepts to their clients. Using ViewPlan, planners can create and view a virtually unlimited number of plans and compare up to three alternative plans side-by-side. Plans include scenarios such as all to spouse, no marital deduction, optimum marital deduction, variable marital deduction and more. Each scenario has built-in explanatory text and allows planners to append their own notes.

ViewPlan produces colorful graphs, flowcharts, spreadsheet-like calculation reports and easy-to-understand explanatory text that can be arranged in customizable presentations, adaptable to virtually all planning options.

For more information or to order CCH ViewPlan, call 1-800-449-8114 or visit the CCH website at tax.cchgroup.com. Price for a one-year, single-user subscription is $925 plus applicable tax, shipping and handling.

CCH INCORPORATED, headquartered in Riverwoods, Ill., was founded in 1913 and has served four generations of business professionals and their clients. The company produces more than 700 electronic and print products for the tax, legal, securities, insurance, human resources, health care and small business markets. CCH is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer North America. The CCH web site can be accessed at cch.com. The CCH tax and accounting web site can be accessed at tax.cchgroup.com.

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