Important Clarifications on Valuation Standards (letter)

I read with interest the November 2017 article issue, “Helping Business Owners Understand Valuation Approaches” (Sidney Kess and Edward Mendlowitz, http://bit.ly/2BmvfQv). I congratulate the authors on a timely and succinct discussion of the matter. I have, however, the following three comments:

First, there are actually two types of reports that are “an official opinion and carries the most weight of any valuation prepared by CPAs.” A detailed valuation report, as described in the article, is commonly used for estate and gift tax planning, as this is the only type of report that the IRS will accept. A summary valuation report, however, is often used in litigation and testimony. Although the summary report also carries an opinion, it does not detail all the calculations that were used to arrive at the opinion.

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