Tips From the Pros: Assessing the Proper Role of Portability

One of the most important aspects of the 2012 Tax Act¹ for estate-planning professionals is that it made portability permanent (to the extent anything emanating from Washington can be said to be “permanent”).² The term “portability” is shorthand among estate planners for the ability of a predeceased spouse’s executor to transmit to the surviving spouse the predeceased spouse’s deceased spousal unused exclusion amount (DSUEA). As a result, measured by 2020 numbers,