Income taxation and basis planning are among the important considerations for estate planners seeking to optimize wealth transfers. General powers of appointment (GPOAs) and beneficiary deemed owner trusts (BDOTs) are sophisticated techniques that can be applied to create best-case wealth transfer scenarios because these techniques take advantage of certain provisions in the tax code that can help estate planners optimize treatment for their clients. BDOTs allow for specific tax treatment, primarily by treating the trust beneficiary as the deemed owner for income tax purposes while still keeping the assets out of their estate for estate tax purposes, while GPOAs cause estate inclusion for the power-holder and can be utilized to preserve basis adjustment. Course objectives: (1) Examine the fundamentals of GPOAs and BDOTs; (2) Explore the foundation for these techniques in the Internal Revenue Code; (3) Understand the powerful application of the techniques and when each is most appropriate.