Beth Kaufman Comments on System to Evaluate Assets in Law360

Enforcing global tax laws has become much more effective in recent years and could aid implementation of a wealth tax, an official from the International Monetary Fund said at a forum Tuesday.

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"There are a lot of hard-to-value assets. We see this every day when we're working with taxable gifts. The hard-to-value assets include real estate, closely held businesses, private equity investments, oil and gas interests, other intangible properties," said Beth Kaufman, a Member and former president with Caplin & Drysdale.

Kaufman said that appraisals for the estate tax often take 15 months, and often amount to guesses.

"It seems like we need some kind of system that would simplify that process, and maybe we excuse some level of accuracy in order to have efficiency," Kaufman said. "And create some rules of thumb."

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