Portability of Gift and Estate Tax Exemption: Planning Considerations, Forms 706 and 709, Missed Election Relief

Estate planning counsel and tax advisers have a powerful tool to achieve significant estate and gift tax savings for clients. Portability's current status requires counsel to consider methods to protect increases in value between spouses' deaths, attain better income tax results, and leverage strategies for diversifying approaches for using applicable exclusion amounts.

The portability regulations require the executor of a decedent's estate to calculate the deceased spouse's unused exclusion and report the amount on the estate tax return to elect portability for the surviving spouse. Determining this amount involves a multi-step process for calculating the unused exemption amount under the regulations.

By walking you through real world examples for portability to maximize tax benefits for estate planning, our panel will examine the tax savings and other benefits of creating portability-based plans. Missing the election to port an exemption can prove costly. Revenue Procedure 2022-32 offers relief for certain untimely elections.

Listen as our panel discusses portability elections, available relief for missed elections, and the computation and reporting of a deceased spouse's unused exclusion change to the deceased spouse's unused exemption.

1. Gift and estate tax overview: electing portability
   1. Estate, gift, and income tax savings
   2. Mechanics of election
2. Deceased spousal unused exclusion
3. Filing Form 706 solely to elect portability
4. Calculating and reporting on Form 706 and 709
5. Missed elections
6. Impact of potential law changes on portability

The panel will review these and other key issues:

• Potential estate, gift, and income tax savings when incorporating portability in an estate plan
• Mechanics involving elections for special consideration by counsel
• How to calculate deceased spouse's unused exclusion amounts per IRS guidelines
• Relief for missed portability elections
• Determining whether to recommend portability election
• How the anti-clawback regulations affect the estate exemption
• Reporting on Estate Tax Return Form 706 for a surviving spouse
• Reporting on Gift Tax Return Form 709 for a surviving spouse

Learning Objectives

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• Establish whether portability elections are beneficial
• Ascertain how to maximize potential estate and gift savings when incorporating portability in an estate plan
• Verify eligibility for relief from missed portability elections
• Ascertain the simplified rules for estates filing Form 706 for the sole purpose of electing portability
• Decide whether reporting of DSUE on Forms 706 and 709 for a surviving spouse is correctly done

• Field of Study: Taxes
• Level of Knowledge: Intermediate
• Advance Preparation: None
• Teaching Method: Seminar/Lecture
• Delivery Method: Group-Internet (via computer)
• Attendance Monitoring Method: Attendance is monitored electronically via a participant's PIN and through a series of attendance verification prompts displayed throughout the program
• Prerequisite: Three years+ business or public firm experience preparing complex tax forms and schedules, supervising other preparers or accountants. Specific knowledge and understanding of estate, gift and trust taxation including various trusts types, the unified credit, and portability.

Strafford Publications, Inc. is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of Accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE Credits. Complaints regarding registered sponsons may be submitted to NASBA through its website: www.nasbaregistry.org.

IRS Approved Provider

Strafford is an IRS-approved continuing education provider offering certified courses for Enrolled Agents (EA) and Tax Return Preparers (RTRP).