On October 4, 2017, the US Department of the Treasury (Treasury) announced that it would withdraw more than 200 regulations, including the proposed regulations under Internal Revenue Code (Code) Section 2704. The announcement is part of President Trump’s initiative to lessen the regulatory burden on taxpayers due to excessive regulations. In a press statement, Treasury explained that the Code Section 2704 proposed regulations were being withdrawn because they:

…would have hurt family-owned and operated businesses by limiting valuation discounts. The regulations would have made it difficult and costly for a family to transfer their businesses to the next generation. Commenters warned that the valuation requirements of the proposed regulations were unclear and could not be meaningfully applied.

Numerous practitioners were critical of the proposed regulations because they disregarded restrictions for valuation purposes on the ability to liquidate family-controlled entities. Since the release of the proposed regulations in the summer of 2016, estate tax planning and valuation professionals have noted that the proposed regulations were vague, difficult to apply and resulted in inaccurately high estate valuations. Indeed, if finalized, the proposed regulations would have disallowed discounts for lack of control and marketability commonly used by families in wealth transfer planning.

Practice Point: With the withdraw of the proposed Code Section 2704 regulations, the use of liquidation restrictions to reduce the valuation of a closely-held family business continues to be an effective wealth transfer planning tool. For further context, we covered the initial rollout of the 2016 regulations proposed by Treasury and the withdrawal of the same.