@Bsch4477 Thanks. Good advise on getting professional advice. Am scheduled to get input from my very senior (leads an estate department at big law firm), conservative AND clear estate attorney 🙂 What I have seen is even expensive pros often take very different views depending on interpretation and conservatism. Hence searching on the net besides talking to multiple professionals to gain multiple viewpoints. Need to develop own comfort level for tax law interpretation after gathering advice.
An example of differences came up in late 2020 when many estates executed SLATs to remove asset from the estate considering the likelihood of $11M gift limit reduction in the future. I believe these involve shifting fungible community property to separate property for short duration (a couple of weeks) before executing the SLAT. My estate attorney indicated IRS is unlikely to agree, is an audit risk, and proper community property separation would take multiple years to execute. We didn't pursue this path while many did.
Anyhow, very good points on talking to professionals. Just noting often will encounter different views where tax code have ambiguities and perceived loop holes. Estate tax being much less practiced than personal income tax yields greater variability in approach (709 form is really quite terribly designed, not much info or tools, pros differ in views and are expensive) So the tax payer need to develop comfort with the interpretation amongst the professionals.
@Anonymous_ Good note on Trust gift and GST allocation and yes depends on the type of transfers and Trust. And indeed automatic GST allocation mechanism is available for GST Trusts.
I have consistently heard from so many professionals automatically say no need to file 709 if gift under annual exclusion. But differences in GST rules and future decisions (may want allocation GST credits differently than gift at some point) suggest its best to be aware of GST consequences and think through them. The reality is the only person accountable for this is your heirs when filing 706 in the distant future.
