Sale of residence with life estate

Technical topics regarding tax preparation.
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Mother transferred ownership of her principal residence to her son in 2005 and retained a life estate in the recorded MA deed. Mother moved into an assisted living facility in early 2018 and the residence has now been put up for sale. I'm making an estimate of the capital gains for my client, the son. Medicaid is not an issue, at least for about 7 years. Two questions:

1) To use the IRS Actuarial tables (Table S, in particular) to allocate the sale price and basis between mother and son, I need the 7520 rate and the mother's age. Mother was born in February. If the sale occurs in October, do I use her age (85) as of the sale date or her age next February (86) because that's the closer birthday? One of my sources (a tax article) says to use the closer age which would be her age in February 2019.

2) Suppose the son transferred his remainder interest back to his mother before the sale. Would the mother then report 100% of the sale and capital gain on her tax return and the son, nothing? And would sec. 121 be available to mother for the full gain or just the life-estate percentage from Table S?
 

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