Federal Estate Tax Return

[ghaber]

In connection with a Form 706 I had recently prepared, I needed to complete the accompanying Form 8971 and Schedules A for each beneficiary receiving property, other than cash. I was flabbergasted when I found that I had 294 errors, all of which were either for failure to include a Valuation Date or failure to assign the Estate Tax Value to one of the beneficiaries.

While the estate had many assets, most of them had been or will be liquidated and the resulting cash will be distributed to the beneficiaries. There were a few assets, including real estate, that did have to be reported to the beneficiary receiving those assets. The estate used the Alternate Valuation Date.

WHAT TO DO: For each of the assets NOT required to be listed on Schedule A:

• Put the alternate valuation date where an error message appears
• Put the value of the asset not distributed to any beneficiary on the line below the last listed beneficiary

It would be helpful if Pro Series made this information available to their staff so they could answer similar questions in the future.