AEP Study Guide 2026
Everything you need to pass the AEP exam in one place: the exam format, every topic to study, real practice questions with explanations, flashcards, and full-length practice tests. Free, no sign-up needed.
📋 AEP Exam Format at a Glance
📚 AEP Topics to Study (37)
✍️ Sample AEP Questions & Answers
1. How does continuing education relate to regulatory compliance & ethics for AEP certified professionals?
Continuing education ensures AEP professionals stay current with evolving standards, technologies, and best practices in regulatory compliance & ethics, maintaining competency throughout their careers.
2. Under the Uniform Trust Code, what is the general standard of care required of a trustee when investing trust assets?
The Uniform Prudent Investor Act requires trustees to invest as a prudent investor would, considering risk, return, and the overall trust portfolio.
3. Who is primarily responsible for filing estate tax returns?
The executor (or personal representative) is the individual appointed in a will or by the court to administer the decedent's estate. A key responsibility of the executor is to identify and gather assets, pay debts and taxes, and distribute the remaining assets to beneficiaries. This includes the crucial task of preparing and filing all necessary tax returns, including the federal estate tax return (Form 706) if required.
4. Which professional would most likely provide tax minimization strategies in an estate plan?
A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) specializes in tax law and financial accounting, making them the most suitable professional to provide tax minimization strategies in an estate plan. They can advise on income tax implications, gift tax strategies, estate tax planning, and the tax efficiency of various trusts and asset transfers. Their expertise helps ensure the plan is structured to legally reduce tax liabilities.
5. Under the 'reciprocal trust doctrine,' courts collapse two trusts created by spouses for each other when:
The reciprocal trust doctrine causes mutual SLATs or similar arrangements to be uncrossed, pulling assets back into each grantor's estate, when the trusts are substantially identical and interrelated.
6. A self-canceling installment note (SCIN) differs from a standard installment sale because the note automatically cancels at the seller's death, which creates what income tax consequence for the buyer?
When a SCIN is cancelled at the seller's death, the buyer generally recognizes ordinary income equal to the amount of debt forgiven, as it constitutes cancellation of indebtedness income.