Illustration by Jennifer Daniel
By Jesse Drucker
For the well-off, this could be the best tax day since the early 1930s: Top tax rates on ordinary income, dividends, estates, and gifts will remain at or near historically low levels for at least the next two years. That’s thanks in part to legislation passed in December 2010 by the 111th Congress and signed by President Barack Obama.
“This is clearly far and away the most generous tax situation that’s existed,” says Gregory D. Singer, a national managing director of the wealth management group at AllianceBernstein (AB) in New York. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”