Carryover Basis: An Observation, an Irony, and a Proposal
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-8-1978
ISSN
1048-3306
Publisher
Tax Analysts
Language
en-US
Abstract
Alan L. Feld is a Boston University Law School professor and visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In this article Feld describes the changes in the treatment of capital gains transferred at death that were enacted in the Tax Reform Act of 1976. Feld notes that tax reformers would have preferred to tax capital gains at death but accepted the carryover basis provision as a second-best solution.
He reports that in the case of the very largest estates, the combined, effect of carryover basis and the lower estate tax rates results at most in a total estate and income tax liability much the same as that imposed under the old estate tax. Carryover basis and the lower estate tax rates will ordinarily reduce the death tax on largest estates.
Feld proposes allowing executors to elect a tax, at, say eight percent, on the value of the capital assets. The tax would be paid by the estate and the heirs would get a step-up in basis.
Recommended Citation
Alan L. Feld,
Carryover Basis: An Observation, an Irony, and a Proposal
,
in
6
Tax Notes
499
(1978).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/2950
