 Nonresident aliens and estate tax provisions
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 Dear
Tax Talk,
If two NRAs (nonresident aliens) maintain a joint
account with rights of survivorship, holding U.S. situs assets,
and one tenant passes away, are the assets subject to U.S. estate
tax? What tax document does the IRS require?
-- Wendy
 Dear
Wendy,
A person is a nonresident alien for estate tax purposes if the person
is not domiciled in the United States at the time of his death.
The rules are a little different from those for income tax. For
example, a person can be considered a resident alien for income
tax purposes because of the time she spends in the country, but
still be considered a nonresident for estate tax purposes because
hshe does not permanently reside here. Therefore, in estate tax
we refer to this person as a nonresident alien domiciliary, or NRAD,
to avoid confusion with the income tax rules.
U.S. situs assets are assets that are considered to
be from U.S. sources and subject to the estate tax. For most NRADs,
this usually consists of stocks in U.S. companies and real estate.
Additional details for U.S. situs assets can be found on Page 2
of Form
706-NA.
In a joint account, each person is usually considered
to own one-half of the account, unless it can be demonstrated that
the funds truly belong more to one than the other. For example,
an elderly parent may wish to include a child on the account for
convenience at his or her death, but the funds may be actually only
the parent's. In this case, the IRS would consider the account to
be wholly the parent's, absent proof to the contrary. Accordingly,
the part of the account belonging to the tenant that dies would
be subject to estate tax on his or her portion of the U.S. situs
assets.
Unlike the rules for citizens or residents, an NRAD's
assets that are exempt from estate tax have not increased. An NRAD's
exemption is only $60,000. Certain death-tax treaties calling for
nondiscrimination may increase this exemption to the level a U.S.
citizen or resident receives. Page 2 of Form 706-NA has a list of
treaty countries, but check carefully the nondiscrimination provisions
of your decedent's country of residence before coming to any conclusions.
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