Alabama Estates and the Impact of the Estate Tax Portability Provision
The Christian Science Monitor reports that there will be a substantial increase in the number of estate tax returns filed with the IRS this year. This is despite the fact that there will be fewer than 3,300 estates that will be required to pay federal taxes. The current state of the law encourages estates to file returns even if they do not owe any taxes to the federal government. The result: increased costs and an increased number of returns for the IRS to process. Why do these estates to continue to file returns? The answer lies in the details of the portability provision of the 2010 Tax Relief Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act. This provision allows surviving spouses to claim on their own estate tax returns any exemption not used by their deceased spouses.