Heckerling: Day 5 – Final Day
Today’s blog post about the Heckerling Institute is written by Withum’s Private Client Services Partner and Practice Co-Leader, Ted Nappi.
It was an enjoyable week in Orlando, Florida attending the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning conference, catching up with old friends as well as making some new ones.
With the uncertainty of estate tax repeal and speculation of its replacement, the week was filled with predictions from all the experts. It will be an interesting year for the tax code and the estate planning profession.
Friday ended with two interesting sessions, the first was a review of when to claim Social Security benefits and a summary of the current rules in this area including the new one related to suspending benefits. Prior to 2016, a spouse could file for benefits and then suspend them. That filing would enable the other spouse to claim spousal benefits. Meanwhile, the suspended benefits would grow by 0.666% per month. After April 29, 2016, using the “file and suspend” method no longer creates a spousal benefit. The right of a spouse to claim spousal benefits depends upon the other spouse actually receiving benefits.
The second session was a review of the basis consistency and information reporting requirements for executors. The basis consistency provisions for property received from a decedent were enacted as Section 2004 of the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015, which extends funding of the “Highway Trust Fund” through October 29, 2015, and which was signed into law July 31, 2015. If the estate is required to file an estate tax return, the executor is required to report valuation information reports to both the recipients (i.e., “each person acquiring any interest in property included in the decedent’s gross estate”) and the IRS. Estates that file returns “for the sole purpose of making an allocation or election respecting the generation-skipping transfer tax” or portability are not subject to reporting requirements. The Form 88971 must be furnished to the recipients no later than 30 days after the return’s due date, including extensions (or 30 days after the return is filed, if earlier). The presenter provided a detailed analysis of proper values to report as well as who are the proper beneficiaries to receive the reporting forms.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss any of the topics covered in our blog posts from any of the five days, please do not hesitate to reach out to one of the Private Client Services partners that attended the conference this week (Hal Terr, Ted Nappi, Al LaRosa, and Don Scheier).
More from Withum’s Private Client Services Team soon!
