: Have we ever seen any such grandfather clauses for all the various changes : in the estate tax in the past? I don't recall a single one.
Back in the 70's when ending stepped up basis was first proposed, it allowed that chang(never actually enacted) to start as of the date of instituting the law, so any gains form purchase to that date would still be considered part of the basis withonly the gains fomr the effective date to be considered whenever the stock was sold. this stepped up basis would have affected, thot the person whose estate it ws during hir lifetime, but would have affected those who inherited the stock, house, or whatever that had had gains fomr the date of the law. I would call thins a kind of semi-grandfathering as it would not have required maintatining the basis from the time of purchase, but from a a January 1 197?. All kinds of tables were published innewspapers for stock bases on that January 1. For tangible objects or real estate gettign that basis correct was more difficult.
In 2010 the year the estate tax ws supposed to end and all bases were to be stepped up , it was scary for my family as mu husband lasft considerably less than the amount previously allowed for no estate tax adn we would have had to pay stepped up basis on all his holding and the real estate, leavign us much worse off than having an estte tax only for estates about a certain level as it is now. Fortunately, they changed the law in the middle of the year giving one a choice of paying an estate tax for estates above $5,000,000 and stepped up basis for all or paying no estate tax even on billions but with stepped up basis for all, eventhose with esttes less than $5,000,000. IIRC George Steinbrenner, the owner of the NY Yankees died that year and his familiy had the choice.
Wendy Baker