Law Commons^™

When Sommers Are Winters: Do Blanks Denote Revocability?, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

In Sommers, ruling on both parties’ motions for partial summary judgment, the Tax Court dealt with claims of issue preclusion and collateral estoppel, equitable apportionment, the completion of gifts of limited liability company interests, and retained powers that would cause estate tax inclusion.

Two aspects of Sommers held particular interest for me. The first is that the parties appear to be arguing their opponent’s conventional position. The second is that the court grappled with whether the blanks left in the gift documents were immaterial to gift completion; however, the court did not address whether the decedent’s completed gifts qualified for …

Defined Value Clauses And Fair Market Value, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

In Hendrix the Tax Court considered the issues of whether defined value clauses were the result of arm’s-length transactions and whether they were void as against public policy. The underlying dispute was whether the taxpayers’ transfers of the John H. Hendrix Co. stock were valued at fair market value. With a decision favoring the taxpayers, the defined value clauses in both McCord and Hendrix impede the accurate valuation of taxable gifts to family members and of deductible charitable gifts.