The Department of the Treasury has released the Treasury Green Book for Fiscal Year 2017, which provides explanations of the President’s budget proposals. One such proposal (remember…these are just proposals, not actual changes in the law) that may affect your estate planning, if passed, is found on page 186 of the Green Book and is re-printed here for your convenience:
MODIFY GENERATION-SKIPPING TRANSFER (GST) TAX TREATMENT OF HEALTH AND EDUCATION EXCLUSION TRUSTS (HEETS)
Current Law
Payments made by a donor directly to the provider of medical care for another person or directly to a school for another person’s tuition are exempt from gift tax under section 2503(e). For purposes of the GST tax, section 2611(b)(1) excludes “any transfer which, if made during the donor’s life, would not be treated as a taxable gift by reason of section 2503(e).” Thus, direct payments made during life by an older generation donor for the payment of these qualifying expenses for a younger generation beneficiary are exempt from both gift and GST taxes.
Reasons for Change
Some taxpayers have interpreted the language of section 2611(b)(1) as permitting the avoidance of GST tax through the use of a trust known as a HEET. A HEET provides for the medical expenses and tuition of multiple generations of descendants. Taxpayers using this technique take the position that section 2611(b)(1) exempts these trust distributions from GST tax (generally, in perpetuity) because the distributions are used for the payment of medical care expenses and tuition. The substantial amounts contributed to HEETs will appreciate in these trusts, and taxpayers claim that no estate, gift, or GST tax ever will be incurred after the initial funding of these trusts.
The intent of section 2611(b)(1) is to exempt from GST tax only those payments that are not subject to gift tax, that is, payments made by a living donor directly to the provider of medical care for another person or directly to a school for another person’s tuition.
Proposal
The proposal would provide that the exclusion from the definition of a GST under section 2611(b)(1) applies only to a payment by a donor directly to the provider of medical care or to the school in payment of tuition and not to trust distributions, even if for those same purposes. This proposal would apply to trusts created after the introduction of the bill proposing this change, and to transfers after that date made to pre-existing trusts.
Last year’s Green Book Proposal on the same topic can be read here.
