Sample Letter Advisers Can Send Clients about 2704 Planning for 2016 Year End

Dear Client:

Proposed Regulations Just Issued: The Treasury (IRS) just issued Proposed Regulations that could have a dramatic impact on your estate planning by eliminating valuation discounts. For those looking to minimize their future estate tax, these discounts (explained below) can be essential. It can also be essential for others as well. If you are concerned about protecting a family business from the risks of future divorce, or protecting your assets from lawsuits or malpractice claims, discounts can enable you to leverage the maximum amount of assets out of harm’s way, without triggering a gift tax to do so.

Act Now: Time is of the essence. Once the Proposed Regulations are effective, which could be as early as year-end, the ability to claim discounts might be substantially reduced or eliminated, thus curtailing your tax and asset protection planning flexibility. Furthermore, as the year winds to a close, it will become more difficult to structure planning transactions to conform to a variety of potential tax challenges. As the 2016 year–end gets closer, it will become more difficult and at some point, will become impossible to have banks and trust companies create trust accounts. If you are unsure of what you might wish to do, we recommend that you take the preliminary steps as soon as possible. For example, if you don’t already have trusts that could serve as appropriate receptacles for 2016 discounted gifts, it would be wise to establish trusts immediately. You can always determine later which assets and how much to transfer.

What are Discounts Anyway? Here’s a simple illustration of discounts. Bernie has a $20M estate which includes a $10M family business. He gifts 40% of the business to a trust to grow the asset out of his estate. The gross value of the 40% business interest is $4M.  Since a minority 40% trust/shareholder cannot force a sale or redemption of its interest, the non-controlling interest in the business transferred to the trust is worth less than the pro-rata value of the underlying business. Thus, the value should be reduced to reflect the difficulty of marketing the non-controlling interest.  As a result, the value of the 40% business interest transferred to the trust might be appraised, net of discounts, at $2.4M. The discount has reduced the estate by $1.6M from this one simple transaction.

Election Impact: If the Democrats win the White House and the Democratic estate tax proposals are enacted, the results will be devastating to wealth transfer planning. Pundits have prognosticated that a Democratic White House win could affect down-ballot races and flip the Senate to the Democrats. The Democratic tax plan includes the reduction of the estate tax exemption to $3.5M, elimination of inflation adjustments to the exemption, a $1M gift tax exemption and a 45% tax rate. The Democratic plan will most likely include the array of proposals included in President Obama’s Greenbook which seek to restrict or eliminate GRATs, note sale transactions to grantor trusts, and more. Wealthy taxpayers who don’t seize what might be the last opportunity to capture discount planning, might lose much more than just the discounts. They might lose many of the most valuable wealth transfer strategies.

Not a 2012 Boy Who Cried Wolf: Many of you might remember the mad rush to plan in late 2012 on the fear that the gift, estate and generation skipping transfer (GST) tax exemption might be reduced from $5M to $1M in 2013. After many incurred significant costs and hassles in implementing planning quickly, that change never occurred. For those who might be affected by discounts, the situation in 2016 seems vastly different. The Proposed Regulations could be changed and theoretically even derailed before they become effective. The more likely scenario is that they will be finalized after public hearings and the ability to claim valuation discounts will be severely curtailed. If you do undertake planning, be cognizant of an important lesson from much of the poor planning that was done in 2012. Consider using wealth transfer strategies that provide you (or if you are married, your spouse) with access to funds transferred in the discount planning. The main regrets in 2012 planning were for those who transferred assets out of their own reach. That is really not necessary.

What You Should Do: Contact your planning team. A collaborative effort is essential to have your planning done well. Your wealth transfer strategy team (generally, your attorney, Certified Public Accountant, Certified Financial Planner, and insurance professional) can review strategic wealth transfer options that will maximize your benefit from discounts while still meeting other planning objectives. Projections completed by your wealth manager could be essential to confirming how much planning should be done and how. Your attorney, CPA, and CFP will have vital input on wealth transfer options, federal and state income tax implications, and more. Your insurance consultant can show you how to use life insurance to backstop some of the planning strategies, in coordination with the financial forecasting done by your wealth manager, to maximize both the tax benefits and your financial security.

Sincerely,