Estate Planning

Progress on the Estate Tax?

By Greg Herman-Giddens

More from theHill.com on the estate tax in Kyl: Deal on the estate tax in the offing:

"Sources close to the matter told The Hill last week that lawmakers are looking to give taxpayers the option of prepaying their estate tax. The levy would be set at 35 percent for those worth more than $3.5 million, however the exemption would ultimately increase over time to $5 million and would not be indexed for inflation. Prepayment trusts would pay a lower rate. 

It is unclear how the gift tax would be addressed. Kyl recently told The Hill that he would like the rate to mirror the estate tax. 

The senator said the proposal will be fully compliant with pay-as-you-go rules, which stipulates that anything more expensive than the House-passed estate tax bill must be offset. 

The lower chamber recently passed legislation creating a 45 percent tax on estates worth more than $3.5 million. Kyl could need approximately $80 billion in offsets if he goes with the aforementioned plan. "

This is the first I have heard about prepaying the estate tax.  Sounds like a desperate money-grab from Congress that will not be attractive to most wealthy folks.  Just like with the Roth IRA conversions, prepaying tax is a hard pill to swallow as well as a gamble.  I wonder if there will be any refund provisions in case the value of one's estate is significantly less at death.

Lest you start to feel complacent about estate tax reform, I should report that just this morning Professor Jeff Pennell of Emory Law School stated in a presentation in Atlanta that he did not believe that any estate tax fix would pass this year.  He feels that nothing in Congress has changed since December 2009 and there are would just not be enough votes for it.

These are interesting times for estate tax nerds like me!

Full post as published by North Carolina Estate Planning Blog on May 12, 2010 (boomark / email).