把豪宅留给后代取荫凉 却该如何避税

THE GOOD TIMES are rolling again in the country's toniest neighborhoods. Property prices in East Hampton, New York City and Beverly Hills were up about 10 percent last year, according to Zillow, a Seattle-based site that estimates home values. Near Miami, on the exclusive Fisher Island-which can be reached only by private ferry, and even then, only by those whose names appear on a special list-home prices are up by about a third.

美国的高档社区又迎来了大好时光。根据西雅图房价估算网站Zillow的数据，去年东汉普顿、纽约市和比弗利山庄的房价上涨10%左右。在迈阿密附近有座不对外人开放的费希尔岛(Fisher Island)，去岛上只能通过私家渡轮、而且只有一个特别名单上的人能去，那里的房价更是上涨了三分之一左右。

Higher real-estate prices normally spell good news for sellers, but there's an associated cost that many tend to forget: A property will probably generate much higher estate taxes upon the owner's death than it would have a few years ago. What's more, estate taxes have been rising faster than property prices and asset values-and, some experts say, they are likely to rise even further. Yet some legal maneuvering may help cushion the blow.

房价上涨对于卖家来说通常是好事，但其中也涉及一项很多人总是忘记的成本：到业主去世的时候，房产产生的遗产税恐怕要远远高于几年前的水平。另外，遗产税的上涨一直快于房价和资产价格，而据一些专家说，可能还会进一步上涨。但一些法律上的操作或许有助于缓冲这种负面影响。

Today, the federal estate tax kicks in on estates worth more than $5.34 million, with the rate topping out at 40 percent. Since anyone is allowed to leave an unlimited amount of money to their spouse, the effective exemption per couple comes out to about $10.7 million. The low point for the estate-tax rate came in 2010, when it was effectively zero-thanks to political dysfunction on Capitol Hill that led to a one-year hiatus on the tax. As a result, the heirs of a handful of billionaires-including late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner-got to keep hundreds of millions of dollars that otherwise would have gone to Uncle Sam.

如今的联邦房地产遗产税针对的是价值534万美元以上的房产，最高税率40%。由于每个人都可以把一笔金额不限的钱留给配偶，每对夫妇事实上的免税额是1,070万美元左右。最低的房地产遗产税率出现在2010年，由于国会山的政治失灵导致该税种出现了一年的空档，当年的税率实际为零。得益于此，包括纽约扬基队(New York Yankees)已故老板乔治・斯坦布莱纳(George Steinbrenner)等在内的好几位亿万富豪的继承人留住了本来要交给美国政府的数亿美元。

Of course, those savings are not available today. Indeed, the growing economic inequality in America means that, if anything, estate-tax rates are likely to rise. Even as recently as the 1970s, the top federal estate-tax rate on the richest Americans was 77 percent. If the economic disparity continues to widen, today's 40 percent rate may seem temptingly low to a future Congress.

这些钱在今天当然是省不下了。事实上由于美国贫富差距越来越大，遗产税税率不变则已，要变则很有可能是提高。在距今不远的20世纪70年代，针对美国最富人群的联邦房地产遗产税税率最高就曾达到77%。如果贫富差距继续拉大，今天40%的税率在将来的国会看来或许显得实在太低，不得不要上调。

The good news? The federal tax code has more loopholes than a 100-foot scarf created by a team of injured knitters, including a couple of big ones that might be especially useful here. The first allows someone to transfer a home to an heir through a temporary trust known as a qualified personal residence trust, or QPRT (pronounced cue-pert). This trust can make time your friend, rather than your enemy, for estate-tax purposes, as it can sharply reduce the taxable value of a home. A $10 million home transferred to an heir via a seven-year QPRT, for instance, would only count as an $8.6 million home. Since the beneficiary wouldn't get their hands on the property for another seven years, the Internal Revenue Service would allow the estate to discount the value by a few percentage points for each year's delay.

好消息是，联邦税法的漏洞比一群带伤的编织工编织出的30米长围巾的漏洞还多。其中的几个大漏洞在这里或许特别有用。第一个漏洞允许人们通过一种名叫“合格个人住宅信托”（qualified personal residence trust，简称QPRT）的临时性基金把房产转让给继承人。这只基金可以让时间成为你在遗产税方面的朋友而不是敌人，因为它可以大幅度地降低房产的应税价值。举个例子：一套价值1,000万美元的住宅通过一只七年期的QPRT转让给继承人，就只会当作一套价值860万美元的房产计税。由于受益人要七年以后才能得到房产，国税局(Internal Revenue Service)会允许这套房产的价值每推迟一年就少计算几个百分点。

Even better, once the home is transferred to an heir, all future price appreciation gets excluded from the taxable value. If, for instance, that private-island home increases in value by, say, 7 percent a year and you die 10 years from now, then without the trust your estate would have to pay taxes on a $20 million home. With the trust, the taxes would be on a home valued at $8.6 million. Depending on your exact circumstances, that difference could end up saving your estate as much as $5 million in taxes. There are some caveats, of course, the main one being that you have to outlive the trust to get the benefit. Otherwise, the full value of the home reverts to your estate. Moreover, once the home is transferred, it is in the hands of your heirs, even if you live for 20 more years.

喜上加喜：一旦房产转让给继承人，将来所有增值部分都会排除在应税价值之外。比如，如果上述那套私属岛屿住宅每年增值7%，而你在10年后去世，那么在没有QPRT的情况下，你这套房产作为接受的遗产将被按2,000万美元的价值交税。在有QPRT的情况下，房产的应税价值将只是860万美元。到最后，这之间的差价有望帮助你节省遗产税最多500万美元，具体多少则要看你的具体情况。当然也有一些注意事项，最重要的一条是你要比这只信托基金活得长才能享受到这个好处，不然你自己的遗产又要按住宅的全部价值计税。另外，一旦房产被转让，它便归你的继承人所有，哪怕你再活20年也没有用。

Another little-known strategy is to transfer the home to a family-controlled limited liability company and then give shares in the LLC to beneficiaries each year. This could slash a future estate-tax bill a few different ways. First, a person could claim an estate-tax discount on the value of each share in the LLC, because it's a minority stake in a private company. So, even though a 1 percent share in a $10 million beach house in the Hamptons ought to be worth $100,000, for estate-tax purposes, it might be valued at only $85,000-or even less. Second, one could slice $14,000 more o¬ the taxable value-for each beneficiary, each year-with the federal gift-tax exclusion. That could bring the taxable value of that $100,000 share down to $71,000. Finally, once a share is given, it and its future price appreciation are excluded from the estate , up to the $14,000 gift-tax exclusion per person. Put another way, even if a home is worth $20 million, its total taxable value to an estate would be considerably less once a person dies in 10 years' time-again, saving millions.

另外一条鲜为人知的策略是把房产转让给一个由家族控制的有限责任公司，然后一年一年地将有限责任公司的股份送给受益人。这样做可以从几个不同的途径减少将来的遗产税。第一，可以要求对有限责任公司的每股价值折价征收遗产税，因为它是非公众公司的少数股权。所以，对于汉普顿一处1,000万美元的海滩大宅，尽管它1%的股份本来应该是价值10万美元，但在计算遗产税的时候，它可以只被估值为8.5万美元、甚至更少。第二，根据联邦赠予税免税额规定，每位受益人每一年的应税价值可以再砍掉1.4万美元，这样就可以把10万美元份额的应税价值降到7.1万美元。最后，股份一旦送出，其本身和将来的增值部分就会从遗产中扣除，最高可以扣除每人1.4万美元的赠予税免税额。也就是说，即便房产价值2,000万美元，只要人能活过10年，遗产的应税总额会大大减少――依旧省下几百万美元。

Some experts prefer the LLC route. Over time, it can allow for a 'substantial wealth transfer at no cost to the parent,'says Eric Rothenberg, a tax attorney with a law fi rm based in Needham, Mass. But the big issue with an LLC is determining how much of a discount can be claimed on each share. In the past, some have claimed a discount of as much as 40 percent, meaning they have transferred $100,000 worth of shares for as little as $60,000 in taxable value, 'but that's aggressive,' says Bob Glovsky, a fi nancial planner at Colony Group, a wealthmanagement fi rm that is based in Boston and has around $3.3 billion in assets under management. He warns that claiming too much might mean a challenge from the IRS. If the government agency succeeds, the investor would lose the savings-and owe additional interest as well as penalties. For these reasons, Glovsky recommends opting for the QPRT instead of the LLC. What's more, the discounts used on a QPRT are based on tables that are published by the IRS-so they aren't open to challenge. And, Glovsky says, the trusts are often simpler to set up as well.

一些专家更推荐有限责任公司这条路子。马萨诸塞州尼德姆一律师事务所的税法律师埃里克・罗藤伯格(Eric Rothenberg)说，经过一定的时间，这个办法可以“在不给父母造成代价的情况下实现大额财富转移”。但使用有限责任公司的办法存在一个重要问题，就是确定每一股可以拿到多少折价。波士顿管理约33亿美元资产的财富管理公司Colony Group的理财规划师鲍伯・格鲁夫斯基(Colony Group)说，过去有人最高拿到了40%的折价，意味着转让价值10万美元的股份应税价值最低只有6万美元，但这就比较“激进”了。他提醒，申请折扣幅度太大可能招致国税局的质疑。如果国税局质疑成功，投资者不但省不下这些钱，还要支付额外的利息和罚金。有鉴于此，格鲁夫斯基建议选择QPRT而不是有限责任公司。另外，QPRT享受的折扣是以国税局公布的数据表格为基础的，所以不会被质疑。格鲁夫斯基还说，信托基金的成立通常也更加简单。

Most well-o¬ folks, of course, remember to get sound legal advice on these kinds of matters. It might help during the process to keep in mind that some say the estate tax is among the least obnoxious forms of taxes, because it is levied neither on toil nor on entrepreneurship, but on the good fortune of inheritance. And even though you might ultimately have to pay the tax in the end, the U.S. tax code-fortunately-contains some breaks for the well-informed.

当然，大多数富人都会想到在这些问题上寻求可靠的法律建议。在此过程中记住这样一点或许是有好处的：有人说，房地产遗产税是最不讨人嫌的税种之一，因为它的征税对象既不是辛勤劳动者，也不是创业者，而是继承财产的幸运儿。而且，尽管最终你还是得缴纳税款，但好在美国税法还是有些空子可以让见多识广的人去利用。