For many a year, the most common trust used in estate tax planning has been the bypass or credit-shelter trust. The goal is to shield assets from tax at the later death of one's spouse. But there's a significant price: loss of stepped-up basis. When you shelter appreciated assets from estate tax, you expose the appreciation to capital gains tax when the assets are sold.
Now President Obama proposes to abolish stepped-up basis. Assets passed directly from parent to child would be subject to the same tax on capital gain as assets sheltered in trust. Curiously, he describes the provision as a trust fund loophole.
Seems more like a trust fund plus.
Could bypass trusts make a comeback? Possibly. Do you believe that a Republican Congress would abolish stepped-up basis?
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2 comments:
Not only will Republicans not pass such legislation, they are unlikely to even hold hearings on it.
This is just goofy.
You call it goofy, Washington calls it politics.
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