Federal estate taxes give very wealthy families incentives to transfer resources directly to distant generations in order to avoid taxes on successive rounds of transfers. Until recently such transfers were impeded by the rule against perpetuities, which prevented transfers to most potential...

Whether and how estates and gifts should be taxed has long been a controversial subject, and the approach to estate and gift taxation varies among developed countries. Arguments for and against various forms of transfer taxation have focused on concerns about the distribution of income and...

This paper considers the optimal tax treatment of voluntary transfers to individuals in a" framework that integrates redistributive income taxation and estate and gift taxation. Under this" formulation, redistributive considerations become secondary. The optimal tax treatment of" transfers...

The tax treatment of lifetime transfers was altered on a number of occasions since the enactment of the gift tax six decades ago. Trends in gifts by the wealthy show a dramatic response to these changes. In this paper, I examine this trend and gauge its response to taxes, transitory and...

This study argues that parents have a desire for dividing equally between their children, and that this motive applies to transfers of gifts inter vivos. We suggest that the equal division motive competes with traditional altruism: support to the child or the children with greatest needs. When...

The estate tax, meant to separate large concentrations of wealth, has failed to raise significant revenue due to it having multiple exceptions, exemptions, and exclusions. This Article argues that the estate tax contravenes liberal egalitarian ideals, considers and then rejects a tightened...

The donor is the primary decision-maker regarding the distribution of her property after death, as the law grants her broad freedom of disposition to decide what property should go to which donees. The rationale underlying freedom of disposition is that the choices of individual donors produce...

A couple delegates a person, D, to divide a cake (their inheritance) of unit length among their children, players A and B. Players are in separate rooms and each have half of the cake on the table in front of them. Each chooses (e.g., by cutting) a piece from the cake, [0, 1/2]. The rules are as...

Wealth transfer taxes are a critical policy tool for mitigating economic inequality, including inequality of opportunity. They are also relatively efficient. This short essay summarizes why and how wealth transfer taxes should be strengthened. Reform options that our next President should...