Legal Assistance Items, March 1981

Missouri will now allow a nonresident to serve as the personal representative of a decedent’s estate. Missouri’s state inheritance tax was repealed; under the new law, the state will now impose a "pickup tax (a state estate tax equal to the credit allowed by the federal estate tax laws for state death taxes paid). Missouri now also allows separate writings or lists which contain specific bequests of the decedent’s tangible personal property to be incorporated by reference and has adopted a self-proving provision.