The marital deduction provisions suggest a unique application of the rule of consistency. The deduction provides only the benefit of deferral and only on the rationale that the actual transfer occurs at the termination of the marital unit, that is, at the surviving spouse's death. The statute of...

Despite restrictions on marketability, lottery payments included in a decedent's estate must be valued by the actuarial tables and without a marketability discount. They must be valued by the actuarial tables because: (1) Congress said so (section 7520); (2) the Supreme Court said so (Ithaca...

The problem, here, with accepting successive spousal interests is not that a dual life interest is any more contingent or unreliable a term measurement than a single life interest, which is acceptable under the regulations. Rather, the difficulty is produced by the fact that the spousal interest...

Recently, in Saigh v. Commissioner, the petitioner argued that, while conceding transferee liability up to the value of the property transferred to her from the decedent's estate, she was not liable for interest on that amount running from the estate tax return's due date. She also contended...

Prior to 2011, the most efficient estate tax planning for married couples required a minimal level of asset equalization. In order to take maximum advantage of all existing wealth transfer tax exemptions and credits, each spouse needed to own, in an estate tax sense, enough assets to be able to...

The article critiques the Tax Court's latest family limited partnership case, Mirowski, as well as the court's Bongard test, which is applied to determine whether or not an FLP falls within the bona fide sales exception of section 2036

A South Dakotan attorney who had become a full-time farmer, left her entire estate to her daughter, but she anticipated that her daughter would disclaim some of that property. The article discusses the Christiansen case that examined the validity of that disclaimer as well as of a defined value...

This article presents the case for repeal of the façade easement deduction. Proponents of this benefit argue that the deduction encourages historic preservation by reimbursing property owners for relinquishing their right to alter the façade of their property in a way inconsistent with that...

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...