>Actually, null dates can exist in SQL Server. Empty dates are what do not exist in SQL Server. And, yes, those do get translated to a very early date value in standard import translations.

I thought about it visually where the result cannot be shown empty. :)

For a universal way, I use this function in .NET to verify if a date is empty:

        ' Return True if a date is empty
        ' expT1 Date
        Public Function EmptyDate(ByVal tdDate As Date) As Boolean
            Dim llEmpty As Boolean
            Dim ldDate As Date
            llEmpty = False
            ldDate = New Date(1899, 12, 30)
            If tdDate = ldDate Then
                llEmpty = True
            End If
            Return llEmpty
        End Function