Will Estate Tax Crackdown Hold up in Court?

Will Estate Tax Crackdown Hold up in Court? Politico Morning Ag If the IRS finalizes a proposal to crack down on a tactic that family-owned companies and partnerships use to reduce the value of their assets and avoid paying the estate tax, litigation is sure to follow - and plaintiffs suing the agency are likely to prevail, predicts Roger McEowen, the Kansas Farm Bureau Professor of Agricultural Law and Taxation at Washburn University School of Law, in Topeka. The IRS proposal, in general, would end most of the so-called valuation discounts, which can be applied to intra-family transfers of interest when there are restrictions attached, such as on liquidation and voting rights. The American Farm Bureau Federation and its state branches - including Kansas, for which McEowen will be filing comments this week - plan to request that the IRS scrap the entire proposal.