Greenville Estate Attorney: “Deal on the Estate Tax?”
December 14, 2010
I originally wrote this post last week, but for some reason it did not publish to the blog. Anyway, a deal has been announced by President Obama between Republicans and Democrats concerning the federal estate tax. It seems that the Blanche Lincoln/John Kyl proposal is currently winning the day, with a $5,000,000.00 exemption per estate and a 35% tax rate. I previously wrote about this proposal here. The devil is in the details, and unfortunately details are a bit scanty at this time. This proposal of course has to be passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and there is fierce opposition at the moment from some Congressional Democrats. There may be a provision as well to allow estates of persons dying in 2010 the option of filing an estate tax return under the 2011 law, or to elect to use the 2010 law with its carry over basis scheme, which would eliminate the possibility of litigation over the constitutionality of retroactive estate tax legislation. Stay tuned…..