Tax Basis in Probate: The Step-Up No One Documented and the Sale That Can’t Close

Gary D. Altman, Founder and Chair | Altman & Associates

Gary D. Altman is the Founder and Chair of Altman & Associates, a Washington-metropolitan-area law firm whose practice areas include trust and estates taxation, probate and estate administration, and estate planning. He has practiced law since 1980 and holds an LL.M. in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center, pairing tax training with nearly three decades of practice devoted exclusively to estate planning. His work includes counseling clients on wealth transfer, contested estates, trusts, and probate matters.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Altman earned his J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1980 and his LL.M. in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center in 1992, after receiving a B.S. from Wesleyan University in 1977. He is credentialed as an expert witness on fiduciary matters, has been a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) since 2010, and has held the Certified Financial Planner professional designation since 1988. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia (1980), Maryland (1992), Virginia (2016), and New York (2016).

• Recognition & Leadership

Washingtonian and Bethesda magazines have repeatedly named Mr. Altman among the region’s Best Estate Planners, Worth magazine has recognized him as a Top 100 Attorney, and he has been named Maryland and Washington, DC Super Lawyer. He has authored articles for The Washington Post, The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Journal of Financial Advisors, has appeared on FOX News, and writes the estate planning blog Altman Speaks. He is a past President and Chairman of the National Capital Area Chapter of the Financial Planning Association and of the National Capital Chapter of the Society for Financial Service Professionals, and past President and Chairman of the board of Hope Connections for Cancer Support.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Altman’s memberships center on the estate and tax bar, including the Steering Committee of the DC Bar Estates, Trusts, Probate Law Section, the District of Columbia and Maryland Estate Planning Councils, and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, alongside the American Bar Association, the Maryland State Bar Association, and the District of Columbia Bar Association. He has taught estate planning courses to attorneys, accountants, and financial planners.

• Experience

Mr. Altman’s practice concentrates on trust and estates taxation and probate and estate administration, together with wills, trust law, asset protection, and tax and business succession planning. He represents individuals, couples, high net worth families, corporate fiduciaries, businesses, and charitable
organizations in disputes involving wills and trusts, and serves as an expert witness in trust, estate, and investment management litigation.

SESSION 1 – Building the Date-of-Death Basis File When No Estate Tax Return Will Be Filed | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session covers how to build a defensible date-of-death basis file for estates that fall below the federal estate tax filing threshold and will never produce a Form 706. Attorneys will learn the IRC § 1014 step-up rules, the asset-by-asset documentation standards for real estate, securities, business interests, and other property, and the record-retention obligations that run for the entire holding period. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for advising executors and beneficiaries on preserving the step-up before comparable data disappears.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Selling Estate Real Property: Gain, Loss, and Withholding on the Form 1041 | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session walks attorneys and tax practitioners through the complete lifecycle of a real property sale by an estate: computing gain or loss from the stepped-up basis, reporting on Schedule D and Form 8949 within Form 1041, navigating the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax under the compressed trust and estate brackets, and managing FIRPTA and state nonresident withholding at the closing table. Attendees will learn how capital gains are allocated between the estate and beneficiaries, when losses pass through on Schedule K-1, and how common reporting errors — including personal-use property traps, omitted 1099-S sales, and installment sale defaults — create liability. Practitioners will leave with a working framework for advising executors, closing attorneys, and accountants on real property estate dispositions reported on Form 1041.