Third, you may want to look for ways to discount gifts. The sections that follow describe the primary ways that this can be done. Family limited partnerships . The donor then makes gifts of interests in the entity, such as a percentage of the partnership, instead of making gifts of the assets themselves. The theory behind the family limited partnership is that if you make a gift of a minority interest in a closely-held business entity, then you can get a discount on the value of that gift for gift and estate tax purposes.
Some advisors recommend against it completely.
Some say it's safer with an actual ongoing business than with real estate, and safer with real estate than with marketable securities. Some say that you can do it as long as you don't try to do it on your deathbed. However, regardless of where you own advisor stands on this, it's still an option that you shouldn't rule out without careful consideration, and the larger your estate is the more you should look to see if this can fit somewhere into your big picture. Qualified personal residence trust . With a QPRT, you transfer your home to the trust and the trust lets you live there for a stated number of years.