Estate Planning Red Flag – Your spouse’s estate didn’t make the portability election

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Abstract: Portability allows a surviving spouse to take advantage of a deceased spouse’s unused estate tax exemption. But portability isn’t automatic: It’s available only if the deceased spouse’s estate makes a portability election on a timely filed estate tax return. But this article notes that the IRS now permits estates to make a late portability election under certain circumstances. The rule change is of particular interest to same-sex married couples who were ineligible for portability and couldn’t have made the election before the law was changed late last year.