2056 and 2102

You are confusing with several things. Maybe I did not make myself clear in the first post. But here it is:

1. Residency for income tax is different than residency for estate and gift tax. In my first post, I was trying to explain where the $60k comes from. The $60k applies for estate of "nonresident not a citizen of the US".  There is no such thing as $200k exemption. In addition, residency test for income tax is different than residency test for estate and gift tax, which is also different than residency for immigration purposes. It is possible that a person is domiciled in the US but not considered resident for estate tax purpose. A domicile determination is based on many factors. Green card status is only one of them. Please note this exemption is applied to the estate. The estate has to pay the tax, not the survivor spouse.

2. Now more to the surviving spouse' options. This is called marital deduction, which was $5.12m in 2012 and is currently at $1m. 26 USC 2056 specifically says "Disallowance of marital deduction where surviving spouse not United States citizen (1) In general  Except as provided in paragraph (2), if the surviving spouse of the decedent is not a citizen of the United States— " Paragraph 2 says this rule does not apply if the estate is transferred to a QDOT. This is the main idea I explained in my first post and a direct answer to the questions she asked, i.e., how to save estate tax if she remains a green card holder. Now you know becoming a US citizen is something more than a voting right.

I typically advise my clients to go for a QTIP trust but to qualify this the surviving spouse must be a US citizen so if she wants to do this she must become a citizen become her spouse dies. Otherwise, QDOT is the only option, unless of course, FMV of their assets does not exceed $2m.

所有跟帖： 

• 回复：2056 and 2102 -lexm5- ♀ (596 bytes) () 03/26/2014 postreply 04:53:43

• 回复：回复：2056 and 2102 -apt- ♂ (617 bytes) () 03/26/2014 postreply 08:51:01

• 回复：回复：回复：2056 and 2102 -lexm5- ♀ (1318 bytes) () 03/26/2014 postreply 09:41:09

• Seems you are right... -N.- ♀ (417 bytes) () 03/26/2014 postreply 10:54:17

• 回复：回复：回复：回复：2056 and 2102 -apt- ♂ (987 bytes) () 03/26/2014 postreply 13:26:41

• 回复：回复：回复：回复：回复：2056 and 2102 -lexm5- ♀ (2166 bytes) () 03/26/2014 postreply 13:57:32