The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 permanently enshrined the concept of portability as part of estate tax law. The portability provision included in the act allows a decedent’s spouse to claim the deceased spousal unused exclusion amount (DSUEA) to protect the deceased’s estate from gift and estate tax. A number of important developments relating to portability occurred in 2017: 1) the surviving spouse must now timely file the estate tax return, 2) the deadline to elect portability was extended, and 3) the Tax Court addressed the limits of the Treasury’s authority to go investigate a deceased spouse’s estate tax return.
See Clary Redd, In Pursuit of Portability, Stinson, Leonard, & Street, November 22, 2017.
Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.) for bringing this article to my attention.
