Z-0434.1  _______________________________________________

                          HOUSE BILL 1159

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State of Washington      56th Legislature     1999 Regular Session

By Representatives Hurst, Sheahan, Constantine and Kenney

Read first time 01/15/1999.  Referred to Committee on Judiciary.

Comporting with Internal Revenue Code language.

    AN ACT Relating to updating the probate and trust law to comport with Internal Revenue Code language; and amending RCW 11.108.060.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

    Sec. 1.  RCW 11.108.060 and 1997 c 252 s 86 are each amended to read as follows:

    For an estate that exceeds the amount exempt from tax by virtue of the ((unified)) credit under section 2010 of the Internal Revenue Code, if taking into account applicable adjusted taxable gifts as defined in section 2001(b) of the Internal Revenue Code, any marital deduction gift that is conditioned upon the transferor's spouse surviving the transferor for a period of more than six months, is governed by the following:

    (1) A survivorship requirement expressed in the governing instrument in excess of six months, other than survival by a spouse of a common disaster resulting in the death of the transferor, does not apply to property passing under the marital deduction gift, and for the gift, the survivorship requirement is limited to a six-month period beginning with the transferor's death.

    (2) The property that is the subject of the marital deduction gift must be held in a trust meeting the requirements of section 2056(b)(7) of the Internal Revenue Code the corpus of which must:  (a) Pass as though the spouse failed to survive the transferor if the spouse, in fact, fails to survive the term specified in the governing instrument; and (b) pass to the spouse under the terms of the governing instrument if the spouse, in fact, survives the term specified in the governing instrument.

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