ESTATE PLANNING COUNCIL OF NORTHERN NEW JERSEY

Retirement assets may be a significant portion of your client’s portfolio.  The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (“SECURE”) Act, effective January 1, 2020, significantly changed estate planning with respect to retirement benefits. Most notably, prior to passage of the Act, an individual, and certain trusts for an individual, could “stretch” the required minimum distributions over the beneficiary’s life expectancy. The SECURE Act abolishes the “stretch” for all but a few beneficiaries and requires payout within a maximum of 10 years.  Join Leonard J. Witman, Esq. and Tara S. Sinha, Esq., to learn more about estate planning for retirement assets under current law and strategies to maximize beneficiary payouts.

Leonard J. Witman is a member of the New York and New Jersey Bars. Mr. Witman received his B.A. from Rutgers College, and graduated from New York Law School. He is past Chairman of the New Jersey State Bar Association Taxation Section. He is an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University School of Law and Rutgers University Graduate Business Program. He was a Tax Law Specialist, Instructor and Lecturer with the Internal Revenue Service in the Employee Plans and Exempt Organizations Division. He is the former New Jersey Chair and a Fellow of the American College of Trusts and Estates (ACTEC). He is a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel (ACEBC). Mr. Witman is also a past Chairman of the New Jersey State Bar Association Employee Benefits Committee and is a frequent nationally known lecturer and author in the tax and deferred compensation fields. He has written for many tax periodicals and is the author of A Retirement Planning Technique Book (10th Edition) and Roth IRAs published by The Kugler Company and Pension Planning after TEFRA, Top-Heavy Plans published by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He is recipient of the Dorothy G. Black Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to the development of Trust and Estate Law in New Jersey. 

Tara S. Sinha is a Partner of Witman Stadtmauer, P.A., in Florham Park, New Jersey. She
concentrates her practice in the areas of estate planning and administration, estate and probate
litigation, and federal and state taxation.

Ms. Sinha is admitted to practice in the States of New Jersey and New York, as well as the
United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American
College of Trust and Estate Counsel (“ACTEC”) and serves on the Board of Consultors of the
Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association. Ms. Sinha
is a member of the Estate Planning Council of Northern New Jersey as well as the New Jersey
and Morris County Bar Associations. Ms. Sinha has been published in the New Jersey Law
Journal and has also lectured for the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education, New
York City Bar, and other organizations.

Ms. Sinha received her B.S. in Administration of Justice from Rutgers College and her J.D. from
Rutgers School of Law - Newark, where she was the Senior Articles Editor of the Women=s
Rights Law Reporter and a Teaching Assistant for the Legal Research and Writing program. She
was a Law Clerk to the Honorable Walter R. Barisonek, J.S.C.