If You Are in Your Eighties, It is Time to Get Married; Portability of Your Spouse’s Exemption from Estate Taxes.

New Estate Tax Law. For two years, 2011 and 2012, there is yet another new estate tax with another set of new rules. For two years, the amount that is exempt from estate gift and generation skipping taxes is $5,000,000. One new rule is the portability of your deceased spouse's estate tax exemption.

Portability. The new law allows the surviving spouse to use the exemption from estate taxes that was not used by the first spouse. This was not true under the prior law. Example: John dies in 2011 with a taxable estate of $1 million. In 2011, John had a $5 million exemption from estate taxes and therefore did not use $4 million of his exemption. Mary, his surviving spouse, dies in 2012 with an estate of $8 million. Because Mary gets to use the $4 million unused exemption of John, Mary's estate exemption is her $5 million exemption plus John's $4 million exemption for a total exemption of $9 million and with a $8 million estate, Mary pays no estate taxes.

Qualifying for Portability. You do not have to set up a living trust or make elaborate plans to qualify for portability other than getting legally married (under federal law). To qualify, when the first spouse dies, the deceased spouse's estate must file on time an estate tax return even for estates where no estate tax return is due because there is no estate tax. On that estate tax return, the deceased spouse's estate must make an election to use the "deceased spouse's unused election amount" (DSUEA). Once you make the DSUEA election, you can't change your mind. A downside is that this gives the IRS the right to audit the deceased spouse's return, regardless of the normal time limits on IRS audits. Also, all of this only applies where both spouses die in 2011 and 2012, although many commentators expect Congress to make portability a permanent feature of the estate tax law.

No Serial Marriages. For the enthusiastic tax savers or Zsa Zsa Gabor (married nine times), you cannot accumulate DSUEA by marrying one spouse after the other who dies before you. You only get to use the DSUEA of the last spouse. You may not want to marry someone with a large estate if you plan to use his DSUEA! The charming elderly retired professor living in gentile poverty is now a tax advantage.

Time to Get Married. Fran is 85, has a $10 million taxable estate and is in bad health. She has cohabited with her long time boyfriend Jim of 20 years, but they have not married because Jim would lose his survivorship pension from his prior marriage if they married. Jim has only $200,000 to his name which he plans to leave to his children from a prior marriage. Fran marries Jim. Jim dies in 2011 and Fran gets his remaining exemption of $4.8 million. Fran gives $200,000 to charity before she dies in 2012 with an estate of $9.8 million with her $5 million exemption and $4.8 million exemption of Jim. Her heirs save over $1.7 million in taxes and the cost may only be for Fran to replace the pension of Jim from her own resources. Or, if Fran dies first, through the use of family and marital trusts, she can still use Jim's $5 million exemption and achieve the same result: no estate tax.

Time to Change your Plans. In the past, when there was no portability, we had to move assets from one spouse to another to make sure we captured the exemption from estate taxes. Example: In a plan made in 2008 when the estate tax exemption was $2 million, if one spouse only had $1 million in her estate and the other had $3 million, to eliminate estate taxes by fully using both $2 million exemptions, we had to move $1 million to the spouse with the $1 million in order to even out the two estates in case the spouse with the $1 million estate died first. This could be uncomfortable in second marriages. With portability, this is no longer necessary.

More Flexibility. With the ability to exempt $10 million from estate taxes for a married couple without using exemption planning, we now can have estate plans that do not have to fit into the straight jacket of tax requirements. All of the money can be left to children or a surviving spouse or someone else.

Cautions. By law, unless changed, the estate tax exemption will be $1 million in 2013, with no portability and a rate up to 55%. This means you have to have two sets of plans, one for the current law and another for the future law. Also, for people who provide protective trusts for children and want some of their inheritance to go to grandchildren, there is no portability for the generation skipping tax exemption.

Time to Act. Call us to review your plans to see how you can take advantage of these new sets of rules.