Take My Liberty ACCT 614 Class

ACCT 614 covers the federal transfer taxes and the income taxation of estates and trusts, the corner of tax practice that serves families planning what happens to their wealth.

The opening week introduces the unified transfer tax system: one lifetime exemption shared between gifts made during life and the estate left at death.

The gift tax follows, with the annual exclusion, split gifts between spouses and the treatment of prior taxable gifts, which is the ground the first return covers.

The gross estate comes next, including assets families often forget, such as life insurance the decedent owned and retirement accounts, along with the Code sections that pull retained interests and revocable transfers back in.

Deductions and credits against the estate tax fill the middle of the course, with the marital deduction and portability of a deceased spouse's unused exemption at the center.

Later chapters turn to trusts and estates as income taxpayers, where distributable net income decides who pays the tax, the fiduciary or the beneficiaries.

The final week closes with estate planning techniques, tying the earlier chapters into strategies for real families.

Research runs through every case study, using CCH IntelliConnect through Liberty's library alongside the textbook and the Bible.

The first week runs Monday to Friday, and every week after it Saturday to Friday, with the last deadline at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the closing Friday.

Your ACCT 614 work is planned around the eleven written items, which fall in every week of the term.

Every case study packs issue, rule, analysis and answer into one page, citing the Code and an IntelliConnect explanation.

Before any return is filled in, each fact in the scenario is listed beside the line or schedule it belongs on, which is how errors are kept out.

For the 709, that means each gift and its value, the exclusion used, any spousal split and earlier taxable gifts.

On Form 1041, the key figure is distributable net income, which caps the distribution deduction and sets what each beneficiary reports on a Schedule K-1.

On Form 706, the gross estate is built schedule by schedule, real estate, stocks, cash, insurance and other property, before deductions and the unified credit.

Homework assignments are worked from your section's instructions with each step shown.

Forum threads take up a planning question, such as lifetime gifts or a charitable bequest, and bring in a biblical view of inheritance and stewardship, as the prompt asks.

The quizzes are yours, and every return and case study doubles as review for them.

The work goes to a practitioner who prepares these returns for clients, usually a CPA in a trusts and estates practice, an enrolled agent, or a tax attorney who drafts estate plans.

That is the right background because the course's returns are specialist forms, and someone who files them each season knows where the traps sit.

They have walked families through the first months after a death, from valuing the estate to deciding whether to elect portability, which gives the case studies a practical edge.

They use CCH IntelliConnect and similar services daily.

Before release, a second practitioner reviews every return line by line against the scenario.

From the first case study to the last return, the same person handles your course, so the work stays consistent.

Only the coordinator knows who you are.

Ask about any quiz chapter that confuses you, such as the difference between a simple trust and a complex trust, and a short plain note comes with the next delivery.

The forms are the first difficulty. Most accounting students have prepared individual and business returns, but never a 709, a 1041 or a 706.

The one-page limit is the second. Case studies must state the issue, the rule, the application and the conclusion, with a title page and two IntelliConnect sources, in very little space.

The gross estate is the third, because the inclusion rules reach property the decedent no longer held outright, such as assets in a revocable trust or a policy on their own life.

Trust classification is the fourth: whether a trust is a grantor, simple or complex trust decides who pays the tax, and students who skip that step get the whole case wrong.

Distributable net income is the fifth, since it is a computation unlike anything in individual tax.

The marital deduction and portability are easy to confuse, since one shelters assets passing to a spouse and the other preserves the unused exemption.

The load is even, though three weeks pair a return with a quiz.

Arranging the course in the first days lets Case Study 1 arrive before week one ends.

Forum 1 and Homework 1 reach you in week two, with the forum replies once classmates post.

Return 1 reaches you several days before the end of week three, and Return 2 before the end of week six.

Case Study 2 and Forum 2 come in week four, Case Study 3 and Homework 2 in week five, and Case Study 4 and Homework 3 in week seven.

Return 3 reaches you before the final week's Friday.

The returns carry most of the price, followed by the case studies, with the homework and forums as smaller lines.

Students who start late are quoted from the next item due.