Law Commons^™

The Decline Of Revocation By Physical Act, Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

The power to revoke one’s will by physical act was enshrined in Anglo-American law in 1677 by the Statute of Frauds. It remains the law in Great Britain, in such developed Commonwealth countries as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and in each of the United States of America. Yet the revocation of wills by physical act has become badly out of phase with the law governing nonprobate transfers, which as a general matter requires that an instrument of transfer be revoked only by a writing signed by the transferor. This article surveys the place of revocation by physical act in …

Tax Recognition, Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

This article was prepared for the St. Louis University Law Journal’s “Teaching Trusts & Estates” issue. Many law students take a course in Trusts & Estates, but comparatively few enroll in a class devoted to the federal wealth transfer taxes. For most law students, the Trusts & Estates course provides the only opportunity for exposure to some of the basic features of the estate tax, the gift tax, the generation-skipping transfer tax, and some related features of the income tax. The coverage demands of the typical Trusts & Estates course do not allow for intensive discussion of these issues, but …

Restricting Testamentary Freedom: Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Justifications, Daniel B. Kelly

Journal Articles

The organizing principle of American succession law — testamentary freedom — gives decedents a nearly unrestricted right to dispose of property. After surveying the justifications for testamentary freedom, I examine the circumstances in which it may be socially beneficial for courts to alter wills, trusts, and other gratuitous transfers at death: imperfect information, negative externalities, and intergenerational equity. These justifications correspond with many existing limitations on the freedom of testation. Yet, disregarding donor intent to maximize the donees’ ex post interests, an increasingly common justification for intervention, is socially undesirable. Doing so ignores important ex ante considerations, including a donor’s …

Toward Economic Analysis Of The Uniform Probate Code, Daniel B. Kelly

Journal Articles

Insights from economics and the economic analysis of law may be useful in analyzing succession law, including intestacy and wills as well as nonprobate transfers such as trusts. After surveying prior works that have examined succession from a functional perspective, I explore the possibility of utilizing tools like (i) transaction costs, (ii) the ex ante/ex post distinction, and (iii) rules versus standards, to illuminate the design of the Uniform Probate Code. Specifically, I investigate how these tools, which legal scholars have employed widely in other contexts, may be relevant in understanding events like the nonprobate revolution and issues like “dead …

Taxation Of Distributions From Accumulation Trusts: The Impact Of The Tax Reform Act Of 1976, David T. Link, Michael J. Wahoske

Journal Articles

The complex rules governing the taxation of income from trusts and estates have at times been described as incomprehensible. Perhaps the most confusing of these are the accumulation distribution throwback rules. In an effort to alleviate some of this confusion, Congress included accumulation trusts within the purview of the Tax Reform Act of 1976. Though Congress claimed that the rules are now "considerably simplified," it is not without some effort that one is able to translate the statutory language into a form useful to the practitioner.

Given the complexity of the rules, it is necessary to begin with a caveat. …

Recent Decisions (Trusts-Conflict Of Laws), Fernand N. Dutile

Journal Articles

Examining the Texas case Wilson v. Smith, 373 S.W. 2d 514 (Tex. Civ. App. 1963), which invalidated a testamentary trust. The trust provided for the establishment of a clinic-hospital which would apply the methods of nutrition, blood chemistry, radionics and other types of non-medical healing. The court addressed a conflict of laws issue and ultimately invalidated the trust on public policy grounds.