News Letter 19 - September 2002
On A Steady Course
Congress in its wisdom has decided to leave the federal estate
tax alone tis year. This gives us time to digest the changes they made last year.
Several states have changed their inheritance tax and estate tax laws in response
to the 2001 federal law change. Most of the chages to Inter-Est we have made in the
last year were made to reflect these changes.
State Death Tax Deduction
We have added basic support for the interrelated state death tax
deductions which will be available between 2004 and 2010.
This will be a continuing problem as the states modify their laws to
protect their revenue. We will add support for new state provisions as we can.
Call if you have a specific problem in this area.
Interface Changes
We have increased the size of dialog boxes and increased the size of
the font used from 8 points to 10 points. We also changed numeric input edit boxes
from let justified to right justified. We hope this will made it easier for you to
read the dialog boxes and allow you to input your data with fewer errors.
Current Inflation Rates
The inflation rate factors we have inserted into Inter-Est
to date are:
1999
101.67%
2000
103.41%
2001
106.83%
2002
110.33%
While the new law makes the inflation rate adjustment less important,
you still need to keep the inflation rate adjustments current.
Federal Interest Rate Change
Remember to keep you interest tables current. The last few
federal rate changes are:
1/1/2000
8%
4/1/2000
9%
4/1/2001
8%
7/1/2001
7%
1/1/2002
6%
Current Changes since the last Newsletter
The current release of Version 3 is 86. Major changes made
since the last newsletter were:
 | A new mothod of computing interest is now supported. We now support interest
compounded annually at the end of the calendar year. This is to support the
computation of Arizona interest. |
| Support added for Nebraska estate tax for dates of death after 12/2002. |
| Support added for Kansas supplemtal inheritance tax effective as of
dates of death on or after July 1, 2002. |
| Changes made to support new Ohio credit for 2001 and later. |
| New provision added to support New York estate tax after january 2000.
This feature follows NY Form ET-706. |
| Method used to compute the adjustment to the numerator (Where the indeterminate fraction
or 'All But' fraction is used.) where the complex option is selected when
New York is the state has been changed. The old method did not
proof properly. |
| SDTC, All and SDTC, Part options added. Option
to use Pre-2002 federal SDTC table offered. Also an option to use various Unified
Credit amount to compute lower limit to State tax. |
| For dates of death between 2004 and 2010, the computed state death tax is used for the
interrelated state death tax deduction under Sec. 2058. |
| Error in computation of Oklahoma tax where there was out of state
property corrected. |
| Connecticut extension of the phase out of their inheritance tax by one
year effective November 20, 2001 is supported. |
| Option added for using a special federal tax table based upon 125% o the pre 2002 state
death tax credit. This option provides support for the estate tax reduction under
Code Section 2201. |
| Computation of qualifying ratio for Sec. 6166 changed to exclude
qualifying interest where the estate qualified for the 2% rate. |
| Sec. 6166 qualifying ratio now rounded to six places to match the Service Center
computations. |
| Inclusion ratio used in the GST tax worksheet in the Gift Tax Report nmodule is now
rounded to three placed. |
| Gift tax computations for the GSt Report Writer computed a GST tax for 2010. This
has been corrected. |
| Additional option added to support California computation where 6166
election. This option uses the federal method to compute the amount that draws the
lower rate. |
| The table used in the ET Report Writer to compute the unified credit for the purposes of
Worksheet TG has been modified. After 2002 it will not uste the new gift tax unified
credit. |
| Additional option added to federal Sec. 6166 election. When you select the
election to extend the maximum amount qualified (protective election) you are now given an
additional option to not protate the payments with the return under Sec. 6601(j)(3).
Added for settlement purposes. |
| Support added to Report Writers to support the IRS reorganization. The old titles
(e.G. District Director) were replaced with the new titles. |
| Several small errors were found inthe Report Writers and corrected. |
