Federal Gift Tax and Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax Returns (Form 709) are both extensively filed and often times incorrectly through insufficient disclosures, reporting gifts on the incorrect part of Schedule A, missed generation-skipping transfer tax (GST) elections and dependency of gift tax reporting on substantive state law. This two-hour program will review selected highlights of Form 709 that create common problems for practitioners and reveal useful hints to aid your effective representation of clients with Form 709 filing. In addition, the instructor will reply to questions you ask during the course. Your instructor is a nationally respected expert with the federal estate, gift and GST reporting and audit representation and has been twice awarded for outstanding course materials by the CalCPA Education Foundation as part of his over 47 years experience as an attorney. This course integrates well with three full-day courses taught by this instructor, namely, GST Tax from A-Z, Advanced Issues: Art of the Estate Tax Return, and Preparing Form 706: The Federal Estate Tax Return.
Learning Objectives
- Receive practice refreshers to prepare effectively Form 706, often the cornerstone to the reduction of federal estate and GST taxes.
- Walk-through a sample gift tax return that will reveal a vast array of different types of gifts, sales and situations you may encounter in practice
- Receive practice pointers on how to determine the prior gifting history of the taxpayer
- Pre-filing review of gifts made during the year of reporting
- Learn the operation and calculation of the restored exclusion amount
- Analysis and examples of the credit for gift taxes paid with changing exclusion amounts
- Learn the vital importance of how to correctly complete (the often abused) Schedule A for accurate gift tax reporting and correct identification of GST transfers by the donor
- Understand why "adequate" with gift tax disclosures is a misleading term... and how you can limit the time for the IRS to later audit
- Learn how to report the surviving spouse's use of the deceased spousal exclusion amount from a prior deceased spouse
- See how to distinguish between transfers subject only to gift tax, direct skip and indirect skips as part of the illustrated Form 709
Major Topics
- This course will review a sample gift tax return in which most forms of gifts and their reporting are illustrated
- Restored exclusion amount reporting
- Adequate disclosure requirements and how to comply
- Dissecting Schedule A: the cornerstone to accurate reporting of gifts and the foundation for correct GST reporting
- Credit for gift taxes paid
- Gift splitting
- Use by the surviving spouse of deceased spousal exclusion amount (DSUEA) from a pre-deceased spouse
- Reporting of the termination of estate tax inclusion periods (ETIPS) and changes recently made to Form 709 for that purpose
- Summary of the significance of affirmative GST exemption elections (elect in or elect out) with indirect skips
- Responding to your questions
