Estate planning attorneys were told that several new reporting requirements would go into effect in August, but the IRS was not quite ready to actually implement their own new rules. These new requirements have now been officially postponed, giving estate planning attorneys and their clients more time to prepare for the changes.
In an unusual but not that surprising situation, 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.
Remember that it is important to speak with the estate’s attorney about all matters concerning the estate tax and proper valuation of estate assets.
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Reference: Mondaq.com (September 8, 2015) “IRS Postpones New Requirements For Estates To Report Asset Values.”