Accidental (?) Tax Break Saves Wealthiest Americans $100 Billion

[Bill USA]

[font size="4"] Here's one worth emailing and calling your Senators and Representative about......
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"These tax shelters may have cost the federal government more than $100 billion since 2000, says Richard Covey, the lawyer who pioneered the maneuver."[/font]
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-17/accidental-tax-break-saves-wealthiest-americans-100-billion.html
(emphasis my own)

Federal law requires billionaires such as Adelson who want to leave fortunes to their children to pay estate or gift taxes of 40 percent on those assets. Adelson has blunted that bite by exploiting a loophole that Congress unintentionally created and that the Internal Revenue Service unsuccessfully challenged.

By shuffling his company stock in and out of more than 30 trusts, he’s given at least $7.9 billion to his heirs while legally avoiding about $2.8 billion in U.S. gift taxes since 2010, according to calculations based on data in Adelson’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

EDITORIAL: Look How Easy It Is to Game Estate Taxes

[font size="+1"]Hundreds of executives have used the technique, SEC filings show. These tax shelters may have cost the federal government more than $100 billion since 2000, says Richard Covey, the lawyer who pioneered the maneuver. That’s equivalent to about one-third of all estate and gift taxes the U.S. has collected since then. [/font]

Easy Bypass

The popularity of the shelter, known as the Walton Grantor Retained Annuity Trust, or GRAT, shows how easy it is for the wealthy to bypass estate and gift taxes. Even Covey says the practice, which involves rapidly churning assets into and out of trusts, makes a mockery of the tax code.
(more)

[indepat]

1. Now ain't this so effin' special?

[bemildred]

2. Accidental my ass. nt

[Bill USA]

3. I was going to put quotes around 'accidental' but that's not how the article title reads.

[bemildred]

4. No, you did the right thing.

Anyway, I would not get to do it if you did.

[Bill USA]

10. lol!

[Turbineguy]

5. Maybe that explains why CNBC

Was pimping that the generous rich gave $3.4 billion to charity last year.

In the vein of "If you're so smart howcome you ain't rich": If they're so generous howcome so many people are on foodstamps?

[PeoViejo]

6. It's funny the artcle doesn't mention North Dakota

...the home of most of these trusts.

[blkmusclmachine]

7. Savvy!

[TheKentuckian]

8. part for the course

[Doctor_J]

9. that's why when someone tells you they're going to

"lower the rate but close the loopholes", you're being lied to.