Saturday, December 16, 2017

Wealthy Donor's Bitcoin Dilemma

You've already used up your $5-million plus estate and gift tax exemption. Now you want to pass  along another asset, worth $2 million, to your heirs.

Should you make the transfer immediately and pay federal gift tax? Or wait until next year, when you'll pay no tax because the new tax legislation will double the exemption?

A no-brainer? Not necessarily, suggests Paul Sullivan in his Wealth Matters column. If that $2 million is in Bitcoin, who knows its value in 2018? $20 million? $50 million? You might be smarter to pay tax on $2 million this year.

Or, you might wait for the Bitcoin bubble to burst. No $50 million, no $2 million, no tax problem.

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