Today’s generous estate tax exemption has created an unexpected problem among clients: failure to take advantage of the portability of a first-to-die spouse’s unused estate tax exemption. Unknown to many, portability is available only if you ask for it, and failure to elect portability can leave a surviving spouse’s estate facing an unexpectedly heavy tax burden, even if no estate tax was due upon the first spouse’s death.
Luckily, the IRS has provided a limited reprieve for certain clients whose inadvertent failure to make the election could leave them on the hook for an unnecessary estate tax bill. The relief provided by the IRS, however, is limited in both time and scope, so the time to learn the rules of portability is now.
Read the analysis of William Byrnes and Robert Bloink at > ThinkAdvisor <
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William Byrnes' Tax, Wealth, and Risk Intelligence 