Ian Bryzek, CPA
Estate tax and Form 706
Form 706, portability, valuation records, and estate-tax documentation after a death—without inventing current thresholds.
Estate-tax questions start with an inventory of assets, ownership, debts, and prior gifts.
These guides focus on records and workflow. Filing positions and elections should be confirmed with Ian against current law.
This is general tax information, not tax or legal advice. Outcomes depend on the documents, ownership, timing, and law that apply to the particular facts.
Filing and portability
Does this estate need to look at Form 706?
Form 706 is not automatic after every death; start by assembling the facts that show whether an estate-tax filing conversation belongs on the table.
What records belong in a Form 706 file?
A Form 706 file is only as strong as the schedules and source documents behind each line.
What records support a portability election?
Portability is a filing and documentation question for a surviving spouse’s later planning—not a verbal understanding between family members.
What belongs in a portability-focused filing file?
A filing made primarily to secure portability still needs asset and valuation records that can stand on their own.
How should DSUE figures be documented after a spouse dies?
A deceased spousal unused exclusion figure is only useful later if the supporting return and workpapers can still be found.
How is residential real estate documented on an estate-tax file?
A house on an estate-tax schedule needs more than an assessor printout or a quick online estimate.
How should brokerage assets be shown in the estate-tax file?
Brokerage holdings need position-level statements as of the valuation date, not a single account total from memory.
How are jointly owned assets handled in estate-tax records?
Joint ownership labels on a deed or account rarely answer every estate-tax reporting question by themselves.
What records support a business interest on Form 706?
A closely held business interest needs financials, ownership papers, and a valuation trail separate from household brokerage statements.
What life-insurance records belong in a Form 706 file?
Life insurance can affect the estate-tax file even when the check is paid directly to a beneficiary.
How do lifetime gifts show up in the Form 706 records?
Prior gifts can change the estate-tax story even when the house and accounts look straightforward.
What debt records support estate-tax deductions?
Debts claimed on an estate-tax return need proof that the obligation existed and remained unpaid as of the relevant date.
How should administration expenses be documented for estate tax?
Executor fees, attorney invoices, appraisal bills, and court costs need a paper trail that matches the estate ledger.
What records support charitable transfers on an estate-tax filing?
A charitable bequest or transfer needs the governing document language and proof of what the charity actually received.
What if property turns up after Form 706 was already filed?
A late-discovered account, policy, or parcel should be logged immediately rather than folded quietly into informal family transfers.
Why preserve Form 706 records after the estate closes?
Closing the estate does not end the life of the estate-tax file—survivors, later sales, and future planning may need those schedules.
How are cash and bank accounts documented for Form 706?
Bank balances need statements as of the valuation date, plus clarity about whose name and whose authority controlled each account.
What retirement-account records belong in the estate-tax file?
Retirement accounts may appear on an estate-tax inventory even when beneficiaries receive them outside probate.
How should promissory notes be documented for estate tax?
A note receivable is easy to forget until someone finds a signed PDF in email or a paper note in a desk.
What personal-property records support an estate-tax schedule?
Jewelry, art, collections, and household contents still need an inventory method, even when families consider them minor.
How do mortgages and liens fit the estate-tax file?
A property’s gross value and the debt against it are separate facts that must both be documented.
Why locate prior gift-tax returns when preparing Form 706?
Prior Forms 709 are source documents for the estate-tax computation, not optional background reading.
What extension and payment records belong with Form 706?
Extension confirmations and payment proofs are easy to misplace once the return itself becomes the focus.
How should estate-tax payments and refunds be tracked?
Large estate-tax payments deserve the same reconciliation discipline as any other estate disbursement.
What marital-trust funding records belong with Form 706?
When a marital trust is funded at death, the estate-tax file needs the funding schedule, values, and trustee paperwork—not only the trust instrument.
Assets and valuation
What valuation records does an estate-tax file need?
Estate-tax reporting depends on dated, supportable values—not informal estimates or later sale prices alone.
What annuity records are needed for an estate-tax review?
Annuity contracts hide important facts in endorsement pages and beneficiary forms that families rarely keep together.
What appraisal documentation belongs with Form 706 workpapers?
An appraisal used for estate tax should be stored as a complete report with engagement terms, effective date, and exhibits—not a one-page summary.
What records are needed if alternate valuation is considered?
Alternate valuation is documentation-heavy: you need values and facts for more than one date, plus a clear inventory of what changed in between.
How do you keep date-of-death and alternate-value files distinct?
Mixing values from two dates in one unmarked spreadsheet is one of the fastest ways to create an unreliable estate-tax file.
Debts, deductions, and later filings
What records support a supplemental estate-tax filing?
A supplemental filing should explain what changed and attach the new evidence—not merely overwrite an old PDF.
How should an estate prepare records for an estate-tax audit?
An audit response is mostly retrieval: can you produce the same appraisals, statements, and debt proof that supported the return?
More in this area
How do you build an asset schedule for estate-tax review?
A usable asset schedule names each item, its owner, its value support, and any debt against it.
What records support marital transfers on an estate-tax return?
Transfers intended for marital deduction treatment need clear documentation of what passed to the surviving spouse and under what authority.
How should survivor ownership be documented for estate-tax work?
What a survivor already owned, what they received at death, and what remains in a trust can look similar in conversation and very different on paper.
What records are needed when powers of appointment affect the estate-tax file?
Powers of appointment can pull assets into an estate-tax analysis even when the family did not think of those assets as theirs to report.
What if the estate-tax inventory is still incomplete?
An incomplete inventory is a project plan, not a reason to invent asset values.
What should an executor save from estate-tax preparer correspondence?
Email threads about values, missing appraisals, and draft schedules are part of the workpapers, not disposable chat.