By: David Herzig
I was fortunate enough to present to the Chicago Estate Planning Council about a week ago. I rearranged a presentation that I gave at the Notre Dame Tax and Estate Planning Institute. (As an aside, both of these forums are great sources of continuing cutting edge eduction for the practicing bar). I spent the majority of the hour I was allotted describing section 1202 the Qualified Small Business Stock Exemption. To my shock, most of the 300 in attendance either were not familiar with the provision or had not thought about it for a decade. After a quick twitter exchange, I thought I would do a short post explaining the code section as well as why it should be used or at least discussed more.
First, can everyone in Silicon Valley please stop laughing. I get it. You have been using 1202 since the 1990s. Almost every VC agreement requires the target to qualify as 1202. For the rest of us, let me catch you up on why 1202 is maybe one the largest give aways in the tax code today.
The QBSB Election came in existence in 1993. Why was the section so forgettable? Well, if I told you there was a tax credit if you formed a C corp that lowered your rate from 28% to 14% but still had an AMT phase-out – I probably lost you at C Corp. Even if I had your attention, as capital rates lowered to 20%, the QSBS stayed steady at 14% so why set a C Corporation to save 6%? Yes, 6% is a large savings but, not, when the Code required that 7% of the amount excluded from gross income be treated as a “preference” item and subject to AMT.
The Surly Subgroup 