Our nation’s estate tax celebrates the hundred year mark in 2015. The often controversial estate tax stands to gain even more attention as the 2016 Presidential election draws near.
The estate tax has been central to many debates during past Presidential elections. Republicans continue to call for the abolition of the estate tax, while Democrats ask that it be strengthened.
The two sides could not be further apart on the issue.
If you are planning to issue your next $100 million tax payment to the IRS via check, better make arrangements for an alternate payment method. The IRS has announced that it will no longer accept payments by check in excess of $100 million.
In the modern grocery store, scanners are used by people who bag their own groceries and pay with a swipe of a credit card. Express lines ferret out the quick buyers from the people stocking their homes for the next six months. Despite these advances and time saving technology, there’s one thing that drives everyone on the checkout line crazy.
That is when a person in front of them pays with a check.
The IRS enacted a new law that required any estates filing Form 706 after July 31, 2015 to report the value of the estate within 30 days after filing the estate form. However, the IRS never issued any implementing regulations for the law. As a result, the IRS has recently announced that the requirements will be postponed until February 29, 2016. Mondaq.com reported this development in an article titled “IRS Postpones New Requirements For Estates To Report Asset Values.”
This does not mean that estate administrators should do anything different than they were already planning to do. It is still important to get proper valuations of estate assets as they will have to be reported for estate tax purposes.
The IRS will eventually implement regulations for the new rules and estate administrators should be ready to file at that time. On the upside, the postponement may give some administrators a little more breathing room.
Houston Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorney Blog