Unlike our International Practice Committee chair, Barbara R. Hauser, who seems to be in a different country every time I contact her, I’m not a big world traveler. But, even from my perch here in New York City, I can’t ignore the new developments taking place around the world. One of the most significant is Brexit, in which the majority of British voters decided to leave the European Union. This month’s International Practice Committee Report covers some of the implications in “Brexit: Impact on EU Nationals and Non-Europeans,”
p. 62, by Russell Cohen and Elena Hinchin. Other changes affect U.S. domiciliaries. Those who receive a gift, bequest or distribution from a foreign trust must now be concerned with the payment of an inheritance tax, thanks to Internal Revenue Code Section 2801. In “IRC Section 2801: What U.S. Estate Planners Need to Know,” p. 46, Stephen Liss and Marianne R. Kayan explain how to help your clients determine if they need to pay a tax on these transfers.
On this side of the pond, big changes are afoot regarding valuation discounts. Proposed regulations concerning IRC Section 2704 would severely restrict valuation discount planning. The proposed regs have generated a lot of controversy, and in “Treasury Proposes New Regulations to Restrict Valuation Discount Planning,”
p. 15, by Howard M. Zaritsky, Jonathan G. Blattmachr and Mitchell Gans, the authors explain what the proposed regs provide and the problems they may cause for practitioners.
Finally, we have some sad news to report. G. Scott Budge, one of our editorial advisory board members, has passed away. Scott was a frequent contributor to the magazine, writing about the psychological issues involved in running a successful family business. We all enjoyed working with him and appreciated his thoughtful analysis as we discussed the important developments in the industry. We will miss his wisdom, intellect and, above all, his kind and soft-spoken nature.
