Under current law, individuals can transfer up to $13.61 million (and couples can send up to $27.22 million) to family members or beneficiaries without owing estate or gift taxes.
The benefit is scheduled to expire at the end of 2025 along with the other individual provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. If it expires, the estate and gift tax exemption will fall by about half. Individuals will only be able to gift about $6 million to $7 million, and that rises to $12 million to $14 million for couples. Any assets transferred above those amounts will be subject to the 40% transfer tax. ...
With Harris and Trump essentially tied in the polls, the odds have increased that the estate tax benefits will expire — either through gridlock or tax hikes. ...
More than $84 trillion is expected to be transferred to younger generations in the coming decades, and the estate tax “cliff” is set to accelerate many of those gifts this year and next. ...
While giving the maximum of $27.22 million may make sense today from a tax perspective, it may not always make sense from a family perspective. ...
For families that plan to take advantage of the estate tax window, however, the time is now. It can take months to draft and file transfers. During a similar tax cliff in 2010, so many families rushed to process gifts and set up trusts that attorneys became overwhelmed and many clients were left stranded. Advisors say today’s gifters face the same risk if they wait until after the election.
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