Please read this article on proposed changes to US Estate Tax if you have connections with the USA.

US Estate taxes up to 40% apply on certain estates. This affects US assets (including US listed shares), US citizens who live in Australia and even those people who had green cards in the past.

In our experience, very few people have received the advice they need in relation to this. It could get worse.

Senator Bernie Sanders is expected to again run for nomination for the US Presidency in 2020 and, with an eye on that, has recently introduced legislation nicknamed “For the 99.8% Act” to change the way estate tax affects the inheritance of US residents. Estates worth less than $3.5 million would be exempt from federal estate tax. Currently, the threshold that is in place is $11 million. US residents inheriting estates worth more than $1 billion would be taxed at 77% on the relevant part of their inheritance.

This proposal by Senator Sanders varies greatly from the Republicans’ proposal to eliminate estate tax altogether. In a news release, he says: “At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when the three richest Americans own more wealth than 160 million Americans, it is literally beyond belief that the Republican leadership wants to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 0.2 percent. Our bill does what the American people want by substantially increasing the estate tax on the wealthiest families in this country and dramatically reducing wealth inequality. From a moral, economic, and political perspective our nation will not thrive when so few have so much and so many have so little.”

We would be pleased to share what we have learned with clients with these concerns.