This past weekend was the annual conference of the American Bar Association Section on Taxation. At one of the sessions focused on the estate and gift tax, aides to Senate Finance Committee Member Charles Schumer (D-NY) and John Kyl (R-AZ) appeared jointly. According to Sen. Schumer’s aide, there will much more likely be a “patch” then any long term reform this year.
My guess continues to be that they will just take the 2009 exemption and rates and extend it outwards — without portability, without changing the rules regarding GRATs, and without changing valuation rules with family limited partnerships.
But we’ll see.