In the Headlines
February 1, 2011

Getting Personal: U.S. Treasury to Provide Estate-Tax Help Soon

Dow Jones Newswires
Chair of the Private Wealth Services Group Ed Koren was featured in a Dow Jones Newswires article titled "Getting Personal: U.S. Treasury to Provide Estate-Tax Help Soon."

The article reports that the U.S. Treasury Department plans to publish guidance on estate-tax calculations and filing. Under the big tax bill passed at year's end, executors can now pay the estate tax, at a top rate of 35 percent after a $5 million exemption, and benefit from what is known as a step up in cost basis that lets heirs value items at what they were worth when the person died. Estates that choose to go with the estate-tax repeal and carry over the original cost basis need a special form to make a series of complicated valuations and calculations. The Internal Revenue Service put out a draft Form 8939 in December, but the final version isn't yet available. The article identifies Mr. Koren as noting a number of problems with the draft and being among a group of lawyers asking the IRS to revise it.

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