In a recent Bloomberg article entitled, “Tax Hikes on Rich Loom If Treasury Revives Hard Look at Estates,” Ian Weinstock weighed in on the new Biden administration’s potential priorities regarding stepped up audits of high-wealth individuals’ estate tax, gift tax and fiduciary income tax returns.
As the article relates:
“Policymakers on Capitol Hill—especially Democratic lawmakers—have expressed interest in increasing the agency’s budget so that it can audit more high-income individuals and corporations.
Ian Weinstock, a partner at Kostelanetz & Fink LLP, said that would be the most-effective strategy. He doubted the agency’s ability to bring back rules, like the unpopular valuation discount rules, because he said it’s unclear if the IRS had the statutory authority to carry out the changes it was proposing.
He noted the IRS already audits a lot of the estate tax returns because the number of those decreased after the Trump administration’s 2017 tax overhaul doubled the amount wealthy individuals can transfer to their heirs without paying estate tax at death. But there’s a lot of room to increase audits on gift tax and fiduciary income tax returns, he said.
“There are clients out there, lots and lots of people out there, who are basically playing an audit lottery,” Weinstock said.
Read the entire article here.
