CONGRESSIONAL WEBSITE BILL CONFUSION
Dear Clients and Friends:
Estate planning and tax law commentators around the country are grappling with ambiguous versions of the House bill passed on November 19. See our Alert of November 22: https://www.jckempe.com/house-bill-brings-continued-uncertainty/ . These ambiguities have been driven by incorrect versions of the bill appearing on Congressional and legislative tracking websites, such as Congress.gov and Govtrack.com. It appears that the House bill passed on November 19, 2021 did not reduce the estate, gift, and generation skipping tax exemptions or implement egregious grantor trust taxation rules. What appeared to be changes to the November 3rd version (Rules Committee Print 117-18) readopting the September 27 version, is actually an older version of the bill, and in reality only slight modifications were made to the November 3rd version, such as the increase of the SALT deduction. The Rules Committee Print 117-18 version of the bill, which was modified by the amendment in House Report 117-173, was adopted prior to the vote on November 19, 2021. It did not include the proposed changes to the grantor trust rules or reduction of the estate, gift or generation tax exemption. That said, and as our November 22 alert above provides, this bill is likely to be modified in light of budget scoring showing that it increases the deficit. Skopos Labs shows only a 10% chance of predicted passage: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr5376 .
The final version can be found in the Congressional record, which omits Sections 138207 and 138209 of the September 27 version of the bill: https://www.congress.gov/117/crec/2021/11/18/167/201/CREC-2021-11-18-pt1-PgH6375-4.pdf
Ambiguous versions of the bill from government sources does not make any of this easier. Nevertheless, where there is will, there is a way! Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Joe Kempe