When Your Client Dies: Final Form 1040, Post-Death Elections and More (Completed)

Tax practitioners need special knowledge and skills when working with clients after a family member’s death. There are special tax rules associated with preparing a client’s final Form 1040 and a host of other issues and options that must be carefully addressed. Your clients need you to be at your absolute best as you support them through the necessary steps during those difficult times.

This two-hour CPE webinar with noted tax and estate planner, author and educator Steven G. Siegel, J.D., LL.M., provides a practical review of how to prepare the decedent’s final Form 1040 and advise clients on a range of essential post-death elections and decisions. Siegel, an outstanding speaker and presenter, will provide helpful explanations and tips on this important topic, so you can advise your clients with care and confidence through the many challenging steps and considerations.

Who Should Attend
This course is essential for CPAs, CFPs, enrolled agents, estate planners, tax attorneys and other professionals who advise clients on tax, retirement and estate planning, and other wealth management matters.

Topics Covered

• Preparing the Final Form 1040
• What should be filed and reported
• Passing income from the entity to individual beneficiaries
• Who must file the return
• Income, losses and deductions to be reported
• Special Income Tax Planning opportunities for the year of death
• Addressing the portability election
• Alternate valuation date
• QTIP and QDOT decisions for the surviving spouse
• Extending the time to pay the federal estate tax (Code Sec. 6166)
• Elections for partnerships and S corporations
• Where and when to deduct fiduciary commissions
• Fiscal-year option for estates
• Disclaimer opportunities
• Treating a revocable trust as part of the estate
• Special distribution opportunities from an a trust or an estate
• Choices in timing charitable deduction claims
• Special Income Tax Planning opportunities for the year of death
• Choices in timing charitable deduction claims

Learning Objectives

• Describe the tax reporting requirements for a decedent client's final Form 1040
• Discuss the key unique post-death elections and decisions that should be considered for a decedent client
• Accurately answer client questions regarding tax issues for a decedent

Level
Intermediate

Instructional Method
Group: Internet-based

NASBA Field of Study
Taxes (2 hours)

Program Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of federal individual income taxes and transfer taxes.

Advance Preparation
None