Revenue Ruling 2023-2

Oct 25, 2023 Last reply: 2 years ago 1 Replies

I thought this was pretty ho-hum, the IRS just stating what has been known for years. But then I read this article:



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I still think these people are grasping at straws, especially since the Revenue Ruling cited a couple court decisions as to what "property acquired from a decedent" means.



I am curious as to your thoughts.



Even more interesting is this:



"If and when the Tax Court, the Court of Claims, and/or an appellate court agree with the position that a step-up in basis has occurred on the death of a Grantor, then tax practitioners and their clients will question whether the best advice was to not take the step-up, or to take the step-up and advise the IRS in the conventional manner available of the position taken. Many taxpayers will file an income tax return and pay the tax as if no step-up occurred, and then file an amended return with prominent disclosure to reduce or eliminate the IRS's ability to impose negligence and substantial understatement penalties. "


If an amended return is filed in order to assert there was a step up in basis and the IRS denies that position, is there a time limit for future recovery in the event a court later holds that position was indeed correct?


I've looked at section 1014. It says that there's a step up in basis only for situations specified in the statute. Among other things it says that there's a step-up in basis for a grantor trust as long as the assets of the trust are included in the grantor's estate for estate tax purposes. A grantor trust that's not included in the grantor's estate is not one of the things listed.

There is at least one situation that can get a step-up in basis for assets that are not included in the grantor's estate, but this is not among them.

I once worked for a lawyer who told a client that he should take a specific tax deduction. He told the client that there was a reasonable legal basis for taking the deduction, but if it went to court they would probably lose. That lawyer was indicted for tax fraud.

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