Valuation Discounting - Part Two

Overview

In Part One last Thursday, I examined the basics of valuation discounting in the context of a family limited partnership (FLP). In Part Two today, I dig deeper on the I.R.C. §2036 issue, recent cases that have involved IRS challenges to valuation discounts under that Code section, and possible techniques for avoiding IRS challenges.

I.R.C. §2036 – The Basics

Historically, the most litigated issues involving valuation discounts surround I.R.C. §2036. Section 2036(a) specifies as follows:

(a) General rule. The value of the gross estate shall include the value of all property to the extent of any interest therein of which the decedent has at any time made a transfer (except in case of a bona fide sale for an adequate and full consideration in money or money’s worth), by trust or otherwise, under which he has retained for his life or for any period not ascertainable without reference to his death or for any period which does not in fact end before his death—

    (1) the possession or enjoyment of, or the right to the income from, the property, or

    (2) the right, either alone or in conjunction with any person, to designate the persons who shall
          possess or enjoy the property or the income therefrom.

(b) Voting rights

    (1) In general. For purposes of subsection (a)(1), the retention of the right to vote (directly or indirectly) shares of stock of a controlled shall be considered to be a retention of the enjoyment of transferred property.

Retained interest. As you can imagine, a big issue under I.R.C. §2036 is whether assets that are contributed to an FLP (or an LLC) are pulled back into the transferor’s estate at death without any discount without the application of any discount on account of the restrictions that apply to the decedent’s FLP interest. The basic argument of the IRS is that the assets should be included in the decedent’s estate due to an implied agreement of retained enjoyment, even where the decedent had transferred the assets before death. See, e.g., Estate of Harper v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2002-121; Estate of Korby v. Comr., 471 F.3d 848 (8th Cir. 2006).

In the statutory language laid out above, the parenthetical language of subsection (a) is important. That’s the language that estate planners use to circumvent the application of I.R.C. §2036. The drafting of the FLP agreement and the associated planning and implementation of the entity should ensure that there are legitimate and significant non-tax reasons for the use of the FLP/LLC. That doesn’t mean that a tax reason creating the entity cannot be present, but there must be a major non-tax reason present also.

If the IRS denies a valuation discount in the context of an FLP/LLC and the taxpayer cannot rely on the parenthetical language, the focus then becomes whether there existed an implied agreement of retained enjoyment in the transferred assets. There aren’t many cases that taxpayer’s win where the taxpayer’s argument is outside of the parenthetical exception and is based on the lack of retained enjoyment in the transferred assets, but there are some. See, e.g., Estate of Mirowski v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2008-74; Estate of Kelley v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2005-235.

Designating possession or enjoyment. What about the retained right to designate the persons who will possess or enjoy the transferred property or its income? In other words, what about the potential problem of subsection (a)(2)? A basic issue with the application of this subsection is whether the taxpayer can be a general partner of the FLP (or manager of an LLC). There is some caselaw on this question, but those cases involve unique facts. In both cases, the court determined that I.R.C. §2036(a)(2) applied to cause inclusion of the transferred property in the decedent’s gross estate. See, e.g., Estate of Strangi v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2003-145, aff’d., 417 F.3d 468 (5th Cir. 2005); Estate of Turner v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2011-209. In an earlier case in 1982, the Tax Court determined that co-trustee status does not trigger inclusion under (a)(2) if there are clearly identifiable limits on distributions. Estate of Cohen v. Comr., 79 T.C. 1015 (1982). That Tax Court opinion has generally led to the conclusion that (a)(2) also does not apply to investment powers.

While the Strangi litigation indicates that (a)(2) can apply if the decedent is a co-general partner or co-manager, the IRS appears to focus almost solely on situations where the decedent was a sole general partner or manager. The presence of a co-partner or co-manager is similar to a co-trustee situation and also can help build the argument that the entity was created with a significant non-tax reason.

Succession planning. From a succession planning perspective, it may be best for one parent to be the transferor of the limited partnership interests and the other to be the general partner. For example, both parents could make contributions to the partnership in the necessary amounts so that one parent receives a 1 percent general partnership interest and the other parent receives the 99 percent limited partnership interest. The parent holding the limited partnership interest then could make gifts of the limited partnership interests to the children (or their trusts). The other parent is able to retain control of the “family assets” while the parent holding the limited partnership interest is the transferor of the interests. Unlike IRC §672(e), which treats the grantor as holding the powers of the grantor’s spouse, IRC §2036 does not have a similar provision. Thus, if one spouse is able to retain control of the partnership and the other spouse is the transferor of the limited partnership interests, then IRC §2036 should not be applicable.

I.R.C. §2703 and Indirect Gifts

The IRS may also take an audit position against an FLP/LLC that certain built-in restrictions in partnership agreements should be ignored for tax purposes. This argument invokes I.R.C. §2703. That Code section reads as follows:

(a) General rule. For purposes of this subtitle, the value of any property shall be determined without regard to—

    (1) any option, agreement, or other right to acquire or use the property at a price less than the fair market value of the property (without regard to such option, agreement, or right), or

    (2) any restriction on the right to sell or use such property.

(b) Exceptions. Subsection (a) shall not apply to any option, agreement, right, or restriction which meets each of the following requirements:

    (1) It is a bona fide business arrangement.

    (2) It is not a device to transfer such property to members of the decedent’s family for less than full and adequate consideration in money or money’s worth.

    (3) Its terms are comparable to similar arrangements entered into by persons in an arms’ length transaction.

In both Holman v. Comr., 601 F.3d 763 (8th Cir. 2010) and Fisher v. United States, 1:08-cv-0908-LJM-TAB, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91423 (S.D. Ind. Sept. 1, 2010), the IRS claimed that restrictions in a partnership agreement should be ignored in accordance with I.R.C. §2703. In Holman, the restrictions were not a bona fide business arrangement and were disregarded in valuing the gifts at issue. In Fisher, transfer restrictions were likewise ignored.

Recent Cases

Several valuation discounting cases have been decided recently that provide further instruction on the pitfalls to avoid in creating an FLP/LLC to derive valuation discounts. Conversely, the cases also provide further detail on the proper roadmap to follow when trying to create valuation discounts via entities.

    • Estate of Purdue v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2015-249. In this case, the decedent and her husband transferred marketable securities, an interest in a building and other assets to an LLC. The decedent also made gifts annually to a Crummey-type trust from 2002 until death in 2007. Post-death, the beneficiaries made a loan to the decedent’s estate to pay the estate taxes. The estate deducted the interest payments as an administration expense. The court concluded that I.R.C. §2036 did not apply because the transfers to the LLC were bona fide and for full consideration. There was also a significant, non-tax reason present for forming the LLC and there was no commingling of the decedent’s personal assets with those of the LLC. In addition, both the decedent and her husband were in good health at that time the LLC was formed and the assets were transferred to it.

    • Estate of Holliday v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2016-51. The decedent’s predeceased husband established trusts and a family limited partnership (FLP). The FLP agreement stated that, “To the extent that the General Partner determines that the Partnership has sufficient funds in excess of its current operating needs to make distributions to the Partners, periodic distributions of Distributable Cash shall be made to the partners on a regular basis according to their respective Partnership Interests.” The decedent, who was living in a nursing home at the time the FLP was formed, contributed approximately $6 million of marketable securities to the FLP and held a 99.9 percent limited partner interest. Before death, the decedent received one check from the FLP (a pro-rata distribution of $35,000). At trial, the General Partner testified that he believed that the FLP language was merely boilerplate and that distributions weren’t made because “no one needed a distribution.” The court viewed the FLP language and the General Partner’s testimony as indicating that the decedent retained an implied right to the possession or enjoyment of the right to income from the property she had transferred to the FLP. The decedent also retained a large amount of valuable assets personally, thus defeating the General Partners’ arguments that distributions were not made to prevent theft and caregiver abuse. The court also noted that the FLP was not necessary for the stated purposes to protect the surviving spouse from others and for centralized management because trusts would have accomplished the same result. The decedent was also not involved in the decision whether to form an FLP or some other structure, indicating that she didn’t really express any desire to insure family assets remained in the family. The court also noted that there was no meaningful bargaining involved in establishing the FLP, with the family simply acquiescing to what the attorney suggested. The FLP also ignored the FLP agreement – no books and records were maintained, and no formal meetings were maintained.

Accordingly, the court determined that there was no non-tax purpose for the formation of the FLP, there was no bona fide sale of assets to the FLP and the decedent had retained an implied right to income from the FLP assets for life under I.R.C. §2036(c) causing inclusion of the FLP assets in the decedent’s estate.

    • Estate of Beyer v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2016-183. In this case, the decedent was in his upper 90s at the time of his death. He had never married and had no children, but he did have four sisters. The decedent had been the CFA of Abbott Lab and had acquired stock options from the company, starting exercising them in 1962 and had accumulated a great deal of Abbott stock. He formed a trust in 1999 and put 800,000 shares of Abbott stock into the trust. He amended the trust in 2001 and again in 2002. Ultimately, the decedent created another trust, and irrevocable trust, and it eventually ended up owning a limited partnership. Within three years of his death, the decedent made substantial gifts to family members from his living trust. Significant gifts were also made to the partnership.

The IRS claimed that the value of the assets that the decedent transferred via the trust were includable in the value of his gross estate under I.R.C. §2036(a). The estate claimed that the transfers to the partnership were designed to keep the Abbott stock in a block and keep his investment portfolio intact, and wanted to transition a family member into managing his assets. The IRS claimed that the sole purpose of the transfers to the partnership were to generate transfer tax savings. The partnership agreement contained a list of the purposes the decedent wanted to accomplish by forming the partnership. None of the decedent’s stated reasons for the transfers were in the list.

The court determined that the facts did not support the decedent’s claims and the transfers were properly included in his estate. The decedent also continued to use assets that he transferred to the partnership and did not retain sufficient assets outside of the partnership to pay his anticipated financial obligations. On the valuation issue, the court disallowed valuation discounts because the partnership held assets in a restricted management account where distributions of principal were prohibited.

Conclusion

As the cases point out, valuation discounts can be achieved even if asset management is consolidated. Also, it is important that the decedent/transferor is not financially dependent on distributions from the FLP/LLC, retains substantial assets outside of the entity to pay living expenses, does not commingle personal and entity funds, is in good health at the time of the transfers, and the entity follows all formalities of the entity structure. For gifted interests, it is important that the donees receive income from the interests. Their rights cannot be overly restricted. See, e.g., Estate of Wimmer v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2012-157.

Appropriate drafting and planning are critical to preserve valuation discounts. Now that the onerous valuation regulations have been removed, they are planning opportunities. But, care must be taken.