{"id":1605,"date":"2017-08-18T02:39:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T06:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/actec.matrixdev.net\/?post_type=capital-letter&p=1605"},"modified":"2024-01-07T19:36:59","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T00:36:59","slug":"section-2704-proposed-regulations-under-dramatic-review","status":"publish","type":"capital-letter","link":"https:\/\/actec.matrixdev.net\/capital-letter\/section-2704-proposed-regulations-under-dramatic-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Section 2704 Proposed Regulations Under Dramatic Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The White House orders an unprecedented review of burdensome tax regulations, and Treasury puts section 2704 proposed regulations on the menu.<\/strong><\/em> Dear Readers Who Follow Washington Developments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The drama that defines Washington politics these days has implicated a closely-watched estate and gift tax guidance project in an unprecedented review. The regulations on valuation discounts under section 2704, proposed a year ago, are one of eight regulation projects selected for reexamination in response to an Executive Order to identify unduly burdensome or complex regulations issued since the beginning of 2016. The IRS asked for public comments, and many organizations, including ACTEC, vigorously responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\u00a0Proposed Regulations\u00a0were released on August 2, 2016, and published in the Federal Register on August 4.\u00a0 They were instantly controversial.\u00a0 They produced severe contention, not only between estate planning professionals and the IRS, but among estate planning professionals themselves, who have not reached a consensus on what effect the Proposed Regulations would have if finalized or what the Proposed Regulations even mean.\u00a0 The IRS reportedly received over 28,000 comments from members of the public, many very cursory and clich\u00e9d of course, but many deeper and broader and sometimes bitter.\u00a0 There were 36 speakers at the all-day public hearing on December 1.\u00a0 ACTEC submitted\u00a0Comments<\/a>\u00a0on October 27 that, in ACTEC\u2019s tradition, were thoughtful, professional, and evenhanded, and Stephanie Loomis-Price ably spoke on ACTEC\u2019s behalf at the hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This Capital Letter will describe the latest round of attention to the Proposed Regulations spurred by the Executive Order. Unless unforeseen developments intervene, Capital Letter Number 41 will look in more depth at the Proposed Regulations themselves, particularly at the factors that created so much contention. Capital Letter Number 42 will take a broader look at the current political and rhetorical climate and its implications for tax guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Executive Order 13789<\/a> was issued on April 21, 2017, and published in the Federal Register on April 26. It directed the Treasury Department to identify tax regulations issued on or after January 1, 2016, \u201cthat (i) impose an undue financial burden on United States taxpayers; (ii) add undue complexity to the Federal tax laws; or (iii) exceed the statutory authority of the Internal Revenue Service.\u201d It directed that such regulations be identified in an interim report to the President within 60 days, or by June 20, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Notice 2017-38<\/a>, 2017-30 I.R.B. 147<\/a>, was the initial response of Treasury and the IRS to the Executive Order. It was issued on July 7, about two and a half weeks after its due date (although it may have been submitted to the President earlier). It identified eight regulations, including the section 2704 Proposed Regulations, that it said \u201cmeet at least one of the first two criteria specified by \u2026 Executive Order 13789\u201d \u2013 that is, undue financial burden or undue complexity. The Notice included this about the section 2704 Proposed Regulations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Commenters expressed concern that the proposed regulations would eliminate or restrict common discounts, such as minority discounts and discounts for lack of marketability, which would result in increased valuations and transfer tax liability that would increase financial burdens. Commenters were also concerned that the proposed regulations would make valuations more difficult and that the proposed narrowing of existing regulatory exceptions was arbitrary and capricious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Understandably, the IRS did not concede that any of its regulations met the third criterion in the Executive Order because they \u201cexceed the statutory authority of the Internal Revenue Service.\u201d But it would be at least noteworthy, if not surprising, that the IRS would admit that the Proposed Regulations impose \u201cundue\u201d financial burden or add \u201cundue\u201d complexity to the tax laws. That would beg the question of why the IRS ever issued the Proposed Regulations in the first place. But, to be fair, an IRS response that \u201cwe don\u2019t think anything we have done was undue\u201d would not really have captured the spirit of the Executive Order. One way to read Notice 2017-38 is merely as an acknowledgment that if any<\/em> regulations potentially<\/em> create undue burdens or complexity, then the eight regulations identified in the Notice are the most likely<\/em> candidates. Another way to read the Notice is that it simply measures undue burden by the intensity of the public reaction, which, in the case of the section 2704 Proposed Regulations, is reflected in the Notice\u2019s focus on what \u201ccommenters\u201d have said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Notice asked for comments from the public by August 7. ACTEC responded with a Letter<\/a> on August 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many features of the Proposed Regulations have been severely criticized, in professional meetings, in the press, in communications to Congress, and in the tsunami of over 28,000 public comments, including ACTEC\u2019s October 27, 2016, Comments. ACTEC\u2019s August 1 Letter selected six of those troublesome features as the most conspicuous sources of the kind of undue burdens and complexity the Executive Order seems to be aimed at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Proposed Regulations would make many changes affecting the tax treatment of transfers of interests in family-owned entities. The most prominent, and perhaps the most controversial, is to add a new category of \u201cdisregarded restrictions\u201d that would be, as the name implies, disregarded under section 2704(b) in valuing such an interest for transfer tax purposes if the restriction lapses after the transfer or the transferor\u2019s family has the ability to remove it. A restriction is a \u201cdisregarded restriction\u201d if it has the effect of limiting the ability of the holder of the interest to compel liquidation or redemption of the interest on no more than six months\u2019 notice for cash or property equal to at least what the proposed regulations call \u201cminimum value.\u201d \u201cMinimum value\u201d is defined as the pro rata share of the net fair market value of the assets of the entity \u2013 that is, the fair market value of those assets reduced by the debts of the entity, multiplied by the share of the entity represented by that interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If a \u201cdisregarded restriction\u201d encompasses anything<\/em> that restricts<\/em> or prevents an interest-holder\u2019s realization of \u201cminimum value\u201d on six months\u2019 notice, then the Proposed Regulations would require the valuation of that interest to assume that nothing<\/em> restricts or prevents such realization. If everything<\/em> that prevented such realization were removed, then such realization would be permitted<\/em>. The form of the entity, the management of the entity, the activities of the entity, the market or other economic environment in which the entity functioned \u2013 all would then be ignored. The holder of an interest in the entity would then be treated as the direct owner of a pro rata share of the net fair market value of the entity, valued as such, with perhaps only a discount for the time value of money over a deferral period of six months. The entity, in effect, would be disregarded. And, assuming that the use of such entities to depress transfer tax values is what the Proposed Regulations must be aimed at, then the objectives of the IRS would be served. Some described that element of the Proposed Regulations as the valuation of an interest in a family-owned entity as if<\/em> the holder could put<\/em> the interest to the entity (or other owners) for its \u201cminimum value\u201d \u2013 in other words a \u201cdeemed put.\u201d And the \u201cdeemed put\u201d label caught on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the public hearing on the Proposed Regulations on December 1, 2016, the first speaker, speaking on behalf of the AICPA, referred repeatedly to that \u201cput right\u201d (as did many other speakers). After that first speaker\u2019s comments, ACTEC Fellow and Treasury Department attorney-adviser Cathy Hughes, a member of the government panel at the hearing, stated that \u201cto put your mind at rest, as we have said publicly before, there is no intended put right, and we will absolutely make that clear in the final regulations.\u201d The view of Capital Letters, similarly, is that the Proposed Regulations do not impose a \u201cdeemed put right\u201d or \u201cminimum value\u201d as a standard of transfer tax value; there will be more about that in Capital Letter Number 41. But the logic in the preceding paragraph, standing alone, is hard to refute. And if an appraiser must assume that liquidation value is the standard and that liquidation can always occur within six months, no matter how impractical that is, then the result could only be a host of artificially inflated, sometimes grossly inflated, values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is appropriate for Notice 2017-38 to state that \u201cCommenters expressed concern that the proposed regulations would eliminate or restrict common discounts, such as minority discounts and discounts for lack of marketability, which would result in increased valuations and transfer tax liability that would increase financial burdens.\u201d Likewise, the Notice does well to state that \u201cCommenters were also concerned that the proposed regulations would make valuations more difficult and that the proposed narrowing of existing regulatory exceptions was arbitrary and capricious.\u201d A new \u201cminimum value\u201d standard, supplanting the time-honored \u201cfair market value\u201d standard, would seriously disrupt valuations and baffle the appraisal community. And, besides being \u201carbitrary and capricious,\u201d imposition of such a new standard of value would transgress the third criterion of Executive Order 13789, which Notice 2017-38 does not mention, by exceeding the statutory authority in section 2704(b)(4) only to \u201cprovide that other restrictions shall be disregarded \u2026 if such restriction has the effect of reducing the value of the transferred interest for purposes of this subtitle but does not ultimately reduce the value of such interest to the transferee.\u201d Congress did not authorize regulations to disregard real<\/em> restrictions that really<\/em> reduce value and certainly did not authorize the affirmative prescription of new<\/em> substituted standards of value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, while assurances about the intention to fix these problems in the final regulations are welcome, they have not alleviated the burdens of public frustration and fear these regulations, even in proposed form, have created. For that reason, in light of Executive Order 13789 and the invitation in Notice 2017-38, ACTEC responded to the extraordinary uncertainties, frustrations, and fears with the extraordinary conclusion that there is no redemption for these Proposed Regulations other than to immediately withdraw them, and to re-propose them for further public scrutiny and comment only if and when these problems have been fixed. Under the circumstances, it is hard to argue with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In enacting section 2704(b), Congress chose to limit the disregarding of what it called \u201capplicable restrictions\u201d to restrictions that lapse after a transfer or can be removed by the transferor\u2019s family. In prescribing \u201cother\u201d restrictions under section 2704(b)(4) in Proposed Reg. \u00a725.2704-3(b)(1), the IRS has taken the same prudent approach. But this prudence is made illusory by the requirement in Proposed Reg. \u00a725.2704-3(b)(4) that interests of nonfamily members \u2013 not just \u201crestrictions,\u201d but interests of nonfamily members \u2013 must also be disregarded unless<\/p>\n\n\n\n (A) the interest has been held for at least three years;<\/p>\n\n\n\n (B) the interest constitutes at least 10 percent of the value of all equity interests;<\/p>\n\n\n\n (C) the interests of all nonfamily members in the aggregate constitute at least 20 percent of the value of all equity interests; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n (D) every<\/em> nonfamily member who holds an interest in the entity has, unbelievably, a \u201cput right\u201d for \u201cminimum value\u201d within six months \u2013 not the put right apparently meant to be hypothetical when used to define a \u201cdisregarded restriction,\u201d but a real<\/em> put right here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ACTEC Fellow Mickey Davis has perceptively noted that this combination of four traits is simply not observed in the real world of either family-owned or widely-held entities. He likens the family member the Proposed Regulations would respect to the mythological gryphon (or griffin or griffon), which has the body and hind legs of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. Everyone knows what lions and eagles look like, but no one has ever seen a gryphon. While the Preamble to the Proposed Regulations purports to target \u201cnominal\u201d interests held by nonfamily members like the interests given to the University of Texas in Kerr v. Commissioner<\/em>, 113 T.C. 449 (1999), aff\u2019d<\/em>, 292 F.3d 490 (5th Cir. 2002), the unrealistic constraints on respecting nonfamily owners mean that all nonfamily owners would be ignored in all or almost all cases. ACTEC\u2019s August 1 Letter observes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n To avoid the harsh application of the Proposed Regulations in settings where there is no reason for them to apply, a transferor, for example, would have to wait three years after forming an entity or welcoming nonfamily owners to the entity before transferring interests to members of the transferor\u2019s family. ACTEC views that restraint on transfer as an undue burden on the involvement of family members, especially younger-generation family members, in the stewardship and benefits of the family wealth. Moreover, the entity would have to give all of its nonfamily owners a redemption right that could favor nonfamily owners over the family that nurtured that wealth and created that entity, which ACTEC also regards as an undue burden on that family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no reason for the Proposed Regulations to apply to family-owned operating<\/em> businesses. In the case of an operating business, discounts from net asset values, or from values derived from comparisons with interests in comparable publicly-traded entities, are driven by the commercial and capital markets in which the business operates. Lack of marketability is real. Partially<\/em> liquidating a synergetic combination of real estate, equipment, inventory, working capital, personnel, management, governance, intellectual property, and business opportunities to accommodate a substantial cash buy-out is an absurd notion. Artificial restrictions in governing documents add little or nothing. Operating businesses thus have little or nothing to fear from limitations on such artificial restrictions, in light of the restrictions already inherent in economic realities. That is especially true if the \u201cdeemed put\u201d alarm is an overreaction and those economic realities are not also disregarded (as Capital Letter Number 41 will discuss).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nPROPOSED REGULATIONS UNDER SECTION 2704<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13789<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
NOTICE 2017-38<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
THE MOST SERIOUS PROBLEMS WITH THE PROPOSED REGULATIONS<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Blurring the Standard of Transfer Tax Value<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
2. Ignoring Nonfamily Members of an Entity<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3. Frightening Owners of Operating Businesses<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n