Dan Duncan was the 74th richest person in the world. I say was because Mr. Duncan passed away on March 28 of this year. His death is important because Mr. Duncan left behind a $9 billion dollar estate and based on current tax laws his heirs will be paying zero dollars in estate taxes.
You see the estate tax laws expired on December 31, 2009, and are due to reset on Jan 1, 2011, back to the law that was in effect prior to 2002. Congress failed to pass a bill late last year extending the tax for 2010. You might remember they were kind of tied up with something called "Healthcare Reform". Most tax professionals have been expecting that they will pass a bill and will try to make the bill retroactive to the beginning of the year. What no one seems to agree on is can they do that and with a possible $4 billion dollars in taxes on the line, we now have a player who can afford the really high priced lawyers to fight any retroactive impact if our congressmen are able to agree on an extension of the inheritance tax.
So if you plan on dying this year, you may not really care who Dan Duncan was, but your heirs will.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
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Wray,
ReplyDeleteGood post.
Everyone should care who Mr. Duncan is. It used to be the only two things you could count on were death and taxes. You can still count on them. You just can no longer plan on the death taxes.
Frequently we see the error of our elected officials’ ways after they take action. Here we see their neglect by their inaction.
Regards,
Thomas F. Scanlon, CPA, CFP®