This is not a how-to-do-it course. It aims at creating the kind of broad knowledge and understanding that guards against mistakes through awareness. The effort here is to develop basic principles and focus attention on likely pitfalls in light of the authorities bearing on the interpretation of the transfer tax provisions of the Code. Tax law is primarily statutory law. For this reason, the statutory provisions are adopted as the skeleton of this course. Tax thinking in estate planning is by no means limited to estate and gift taxes and the generation-skipping transfer tax. The federal income tax is also highly relevant and is therefore discussed.