This article proposes replacing the federal estate and gift tax system with an accessions tax. An accessions tax is a tax, at progressive rates, on the aggregate lifetime gratuitous receipts of an individual in excess of a specified exemption. The main thesis of this article is that an...

This Estate and Gift Tax Rap column for Tax Notes is an extended discussion of the United States District Court (W.D. Pa.) decision in Estate of Palumbo v. U.S.. In that case, the court upheld a claimed estate tax charitable deduction for amounts passing to charity pursuant to a settlement of a...

George Steinbrenner was a lucky man. The longtime owner of the New York Yankees died on July 13, 2010, during the current one-year hiatus in the federal estate tax. The man whose management style earned him the nickname ‘‘The Boss'' may have pulled off the greatest play in baseball history....

If decedent can possess property on the happening of an event that has not occurred at his death, should that contingent property interest, properly discounted to reflect that risk, be included in his estate? If decedent's death extinguishes a contingent interest that he created, should anything...

In Estate of Shapiro, the Ninth Circuit held that an individual had a valid palimony claim under Nevada state law. However, the issue was whether the decedent's estate qualified for a deduction for that claim under federal estate tax law

Currently, the estate tax does not accurately value the property and transactions that it is meant to cover. Additionally, the marital and charitable deductions do not reflect actual associated transfers, instead skewing their benefits away from their purported beneficiaries. This Article...