Estate and Gift Tax Valuation

Tax advisors, accountants and attorneys refer their clients to Marshall & Stevens because we have a full complement of highly-experienced professionals who value businesses, financial instruments, intangible assets, real estate, and equipment for compliance with the Internal Revenue Code for wealth transfer (gifting) as well as estate tax reporting purposes.

 


Critical Deadline for Gift Tax Exemptions:

At midnight December 31, 2025, the federal lifetime gift tax exemption will plummet from over $13 million to over $7 million dollars for 2026. 

If you haven’t taken advantage of the current opportunity to gift interests in your business, real estate, private equity, BDC or other funds, why are you waiting? Valuations are lower in 2023 and 2024 due to multiple market forces. 

Low values provide an opportunity to gift a higher percentage of one’s investments tax free, but that opportunity is lost when valuations are higher and the gift tax threshold is lower.

Click here to read our exclusive article Wealth Transfer before the Cliff to learn more about valuation and gifting of equity and debt interests in businesses, real estate, and funds, include carried interests.


The IRS expects Estate and Gift Tax valuations to be performed by professionals experienced in valuing similar enterprises and assets and that each analysis comply with IRC 59-60, including consideration of all three generally accepted approaches to value, as they may apply: Income Approach, Market Approach and Cost Approach.  Our staff meet the IRS standards of a “Qualified Appraiser.” 

For fractional interest studies (aka “Discount Studies”), our analyses consider multiple valuation methods to determine the difference in value between a control and a minority interest, as well discounts for lack of marketability, if appropriate.  Such methods include, as applicable:

  1. Benchmarking (i.e. Mandelbaum analysis)
  2. Option-pricing models (i.e. Finnerty, Chaffe, and Black-Scholes)
  3. Restricted stock analyses

We assist equity holders with the valuation of domestic and international investments, including:

  • Interests in closely-held businesses and in thinly-traded public companies.
  • Equity and debt instruments in simple and complex capital structures.
  • Carried interests and investments in business development companies (“BDC”), private equity funds, hedge funds, and real estate funds.
  • Interests in trusts, LLCs, LP’s, FLPs, S-corps, etc.
  • Marketable securities.
  • Real estate, intellectual property, and equipment.
  • Interests in real estate holding companies, combining the skills of our real estate appraisers and financial valuation analysts.

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