One of the most overlooked and misunderstood tax laws – available to married farming couples – is an opportunity called portability. When one of the spouses dies, the surviving spouse can make a ...

The American Taxpayer Relief Act that became law on Jan. 2, 2013, changed the landscape of when an estate tax return – and IRS Form 706 – needs to be filed. The $5 million estate tax exemption was ...

On Tuesday, the IRS posted a draft version of the instructions to Form 706, United States Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return, a follow-up to the draft Form 706 that was posted in ...

A common financial mistake married farm couples make occurs when the first spouse dies, and the surviving spouse fails to “elect portability.” It’s a process by which any unused federal gift or estate ...

The new Part 6 of the draft Form 706 states that a decedent with a surviving spouse elects portability of the DSUE amount, if any, by completing and timely filing the Form 706. No further action is ...

On Oct. 4, the Internal Revenue Service posted final Form 706 for individuals dying in 2012. It posted final updated instructions on Oct. 12. Here’s an overview of the new form and instructions and ...

In a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen and other IRS officials on March 19, Troy Lewis, chair of the AICPA Tax Executive Committee, requested that the IRS provide relief to surviving spouses ...

Julia Kagan is a financial/consumer journalist and former senior editor, personal finance, of Investopedia. Charlene Rhinehart is a CPA , CFE, chair of an Illinois CPA Society committee, and has a ...

One of the great challenges in financial planning is figuring out how to transfer wealth from one generation to the next in the most tax efficient manner possible. Tax efficiency, in this context, ...