Larry Katzenstein's Tiger Tables for Windows has been designed for ease of use, and you will need little in the way of instructions to generate factors. These instructions are available by web access only to allow for updating. The program will compute the following factors for you:

1. Annuity, life estate and remainder factors for from one to ten lives

2. Term of years annuity, term and remainder factors

3. Charitable contribution of gift of a remainder in a personal residence or farm with reserved legal life estate--one or two lives

4. Charitable unitrust deduction and factors for from one to ten lives

5. Charitable unitrust deduction and factors for terms of years

6. Charitable unitrust deduction and factors for the shorter of a life or lives or a term of years. 

7. Charitable annuity trust deductions and factors for from one to ten lives

8. Charitable annuity trust deduction and factors for terms of years

9. Charitable annuity trust deductions and factors for the shorter of a life or lives or a term of years  

10. Pooled income fund contribution deduction and factors for from one to ten lives

11. Charitable gift annuities for one or two lives

12. Deferred charitable gift annuities for one or two lives

13. Charitable lead trusts

14. Charitable remainder trusts

15. 5% probability of exhaustion test for a charitable remainder annuity trust

16. Grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT) computations

17. Qualified personal residence trust (QPRT) computations

18. Life expectancy calculation for one or two lives

19. The value of income or an annuity for a term of X years or until the prior death of a person aged Y

20. The value of income or an annuity for a term of X years or until the first to die of two persons aged Y and Z

21. The value of income or an annuity for a term of X years or until the last to die of two persons aged Y and Z

22. The worth of $1.00 due at the death of a person aged X if the death occurs within Y years

23. The probability of survival from age X to age Y

24. The value at age X of the right to receive $1.00 at age Y

25. A table of L(x) mortality values

26. The value of an income beneficiary's interest in a trust where the beneficiary also holds a 5 and 5 power of withdrawal

27. Commutation Tables--D-,M-,N- and R-factors

28. Self-Cancelling installment note calculation of interest or principal risk premium

29. The probability one person will survive another person.

30. The value of $1.00 at the death of Y if X survives Y.

31. Private annuity calculations. 

32. Nearest age calculator. 

33. Interrelated estate tax calculator (also works if tax not interrelated) with rates and exemptions through 2009.  

34. Amortization schedules...solves for any variable (payment, principal amount, interest rate or term).   

You will be prompted to enter information. The prompts are self-explanatory, but we offer the following suggestions:

1. . AGES: The programs dependent on a life or lives (rather than a term of years) call for the user to enter an age or ages. The Internal Revenue Service requires use of the whole age nearest the birthday of the individual. For example, a person age 40 and two months should be shown as age 40. A person age 40 and eight months should be shown as age 41. Fractional ages (i.e., 40.3) are not permitted by the Service or by Tiger Tables. For factors based on more than one life, you may enter the ages in any order. The program will generate factors for ages 0 through 109. The nearest age calculator will make calculation of the nearest age a snap.

2. INTEREST RATES: Internal Revenue Code §7520 requires that for transfers after the effective dates, factors be computed with an interest assumption of 120% of the Federal mid-term rate in effect for the month of the transfer, compounded annually.   This is usually published as the "section 7520 rate." This rate is always available on the Tiger Tables web page which can be reached by clicking on the appropriate button on the various form pages or from the main menu under "Links." The rate for the following month is announced by about the 21^st of each month and will be amde available within a day or so of its release by the Internal Revenue Service. Code §7520 requires that interest rates be rounded to the nearest two-tenths of one percent. Therefore, interest rates should be entered, for example, as 11.4 rather than as 11.36. Use of an interest rate not permitted by §7520 will result in an error message. Interest rates should be entered as whole numbers rather than as decimal numbers: 11.4% should be entered as 11.4 rather than .114. Note that for charitable transfers, Internal Revenue Code §7520 permits use of the interest rate for the month of the gift or either of the two months preceding the gift. You can enter interest rates in several ways: by using the numeric keypad, by clicking on the arrow to the right of the interest box and then clicking on the desired interest rate, or by using the up and down arrows on your computer to scroll to the desired rate.

3. CHARITABLE ANNUITY TRUSTS AND UNITRUSTS: The computations for unitrusts and annuity trust interests can be used for valuing either lead or remainder interests. In the case of an annuity trust for a term of years, for example, the value of the annuity will be the charitable lead interest for a lead trust and the value of the remainder will be the gift to family members. For a charitable remainder annuity trust, the value of the remainder would be the charitable contribution. You will be warned if the payout exceeds 50% or if the actuarial value of the remainder is less than 10%, as is now prohibited by Code section 664. Obviously, you can ignore these warnings if you are valuing interests in a charitable lead trust. If you are computing the remainder in a charitable remainder annuity trust, you will be warned if the 5% probability of exhaustion test is violated.  Tiger Tables now computes this using the method set out in Revenue Ruling 77-374. That should not imply that the author necessarily believes the ruling is correct!

4. RESIDENCE TO CHARITY: The factors calculated by the menu choice Residence to Charity take into account depreciation and should be used solely for calculating a donor's gift of a remainder interest in a personal residence to a charity after a reserved life estate. See regulation Section 1.170A-12. For calculation of the remainder interest in a qualified personal residence trust ("QPRT"), depreciation is not taken into account. See below. Most people use 45 years to calculate the factor for the depreciable portion.

5. GRATs and QPRTs: The GRAT and QPRT calculations should be self-explanatory. The QPRT calculations assume that the grantor has retained a reversion, since the value of this reversion may be considered as part of the retained interest in valuing the gift in the QPRT. In those rare cases where, for some reason, the reversion is not retained, the total retained interest would be the retained income factor alone. The GRAT calculations let you compute the gift either taking into account trust exhaustion and mortality as presently required by the Service, or ignoring them. The zero out annuity is calculated on the basis of the term annuity factor only, rather than on a factor taking into account mortality. This will not produce as small a gift as an annuity which takes into account mortality. But in most cases, the somewhat larger gift is desirable because the annuity which must be paid back to the grantor will be substantially less. You should run your own calculations and make your own decisions regarding the amount of annuity to be paid. This is only a suggestion which many practitioners will want to follow.

6. ANNUITY ADJUSTMENT FACTORS: The annuity adjustment factors for term of years calculations permit the user to select either beginning of period or end of period payment options. In cases where an annuity payment for a life or lives is made at the beginning of each period rather than at the end, the value of the annuity should be calculated by using the present value of a similar annuity, the first payment of which is not to be made until the end of the payment period as calculated by Tiger Tables, and adding to it the amount of the first annuity payment.

7. COMMUTATION TABLES: You won't need the commutation tables because you have Tiger Tables. But the commutation tables are included in Miscellaneous should you for any reason want them.

Tiger Tables assumes that you are familiar with the relevant tax law provisions governing the use of these factors. For example, Tiger Tables will compute, as do the Internal Revenue Service's own tables, the value of a charitable remainder unitrust with less than a 5% payout, despite the fact that such a trust will not qualify under present law as a charitable remainder trust. (The program will compute factors for less than 5% because such factors will be useful for computing factors for charitable lead unitrusts, where a 5% payout is not required.) Therefore, we urge you to use these factors with care in the same way that you previously used the Service's published tables of factors.

We hope you find Tiger Tables useful. If you have questions, please e-mail or fax me. We would like to hear from you. If you have comments about the program, if you like the program and want to tell us, or have suggestions for improving the program, please let us know.

TIGER TABLES SOFTWARE GRANTS NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE DISKETTE AND RELATED MATERIALS, THEIR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE, THEIR QUALITY, THEIR MERCHANTABILITY, OR OTHERWISE. THE LIABILITY OF TIGER TABLES SOFTWARE SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT PAID BY THE CUSTOMER FOR THE PRODUCT. IN NO EVENT SHALL TIGER TABLES SOFTWARE BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR OTHER DAMAGES FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY.

(c) Lawrence P. Katzenstein 2006