回复:请教版主单身老猫关于遗产继承的问题,请进来,谢谢。

来源: 2014-03-25 16:15:37 [博客] [旧帖] [给我悄悄话] 本文已被阅读:
You will need an estate planning attorney.

It is not $200k exclusion but for resident aliens, it is $60k. Anything exceeding this will be taxed based on the property's fair market value. For example, your house can be assessed 1 million dollars and you will pay no tax if you are an American citizen but have to pay maximum $376000 in tax if you are a green card holder. Remember FMV of your house can be much more than your property tax basis.

There are many ways to avoid paying estate tax. One way is to use irrevocable trust, which not a lot of people are willing to do. Most people choose to pour over into a trust, which does not help. According to IRS rules, anything you transferred within two years must be brought back to the estate and taxed.

The best way is to create a reciprocal trust. This way, the survivor (greencard holder) has limited access to the decedent trust, which is not taxed. The tax will be paid out when the survivor trust is distributed, which could be many years later and to a different person. The survivor trust is typically a QTIP trust or QDOT (which does not apply here) to postpone taxes.