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Full-Text Articles in Law

Is A Gift Forever?, William I. Miller Jan 2007

Is A Gift Forever?, William I. Miller

Articles

What are the rules regarding gifts you receive? Can you give them away? If so, must you conceal that you have done so from the original giver? Or is there a statute of limitations, after which any right the original giver has to feel wronged or to burden you with guilt for undervaluing it by giving it away rightly expires? Even an heirloom might exhaust its sacredness. Sometimes the sacred has a half-life, as might be the case, for instance, with your grandmother’s dining set. Can the giver ask for his gifts back if you try to give them away? …


Class Gifts Under The Restatement (Third) Of Property, Lawrence W. Waggoner Jan 2007

Class Gifts Under The Restatement (Third) Of Property, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

The new Restatement (Third) of Property (officially the Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers), in tandem with the Restatement (Third) of Trusts, is systematically proceeding through the whole field of wills, will substitutes, trusts, and estates. Both of the new Restatements should prove to be handy resources for trust and estate lawyers, not only in preparing to argue cases at both trial and appellate levels, but also in the everyday work of drafting and construing dispositive provisions in wills, trusts, and other types of donative documents. Each Restatement section is followed by a set of Comments explaining …


Giving Intellectual Property, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine Jan 2006

Giving Intellectual Property, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

Articles

The interdisciplinarity of intellectual property and taxation poses many challenges to the disparate existing norms in each respective field of law. This Article identifies and critiques the current tax regime governing the giving of intellectual property as a manifestation of the failure to understand the principles and policies underlying intellectual property and the firm. It proposes an economic, incentives-based system that would encourage firms to extricate part of their repository of residual rights by surrendering their monopolistic ownership of intellectual property for the benefit of charitable organizations and, in turn, the development and growth of society.


Gifts, Gafts And Gefts: The Income Tax Definition And Treatment Of Private And Charitable 'Gifts' And A Principled Policy Justification For The Exclusion Of Gifts From Income, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn Jan 2003

Gifts, Gafts And Gefts: The Income Tax Definition And Treatment Of Private And Charitable 'Gifts' And A Principled Policy Justification For The Exclusion Of Gifts From Income, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Articles

Gifts have been given special treatment by the income tax laws since the first post-16th Amendment tax statute was adopted in 1913. The determination of how the income tax law should treat gifts raises a number of issues. For example: should gifts be given special treatment? If so, what should qualify as a gift? Should gifts to a private party be taxable to the donee? Should gifts to a private party be deductible by the donor? Should the donee's basis in a gift of property be determined by reference to the basis that the donor had, and should any modifications …


Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid: Case Studies In The Negotiation And Classification Of Exchange In Medieval Iceland, William I. Miller Jan 1986

Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid: Case Studies In The Negotiation And Classification Of Exchange In Medieval Iceland, William I. Miller

Articles

Near the end of Eyrbyggja saga Porir asks Ospak and his men where they had gotten the goods they were carrying. Ospak said that they had gotten them at Pambardal. "How did you come by them?" said Porir. Ospak answered, "They were not given, they were not paid to me, nor were they sold either." Ospak had earlier that evening raided the house of a farmer called Alf and made away with enough to burden four horses. And this was exactly what he told Porir when he wittily eliminated the other modes of transfer by which he could have acquired …


The Funding Of Children's Educational Costs, Douglas A. Kahn Jan 1985

The Funding Of Children's Educational Costs, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

A plan for reduction of educational costs should take federal transfer taxes into account. The method chosen for reducing income tax liability usually will involve making gifts. To the extent that it is convenient to do so, the transfer tax consequences of making such gifts should be minimized. This article will examine the estate and gift tax consequences of the income tax reduction arrangements described herein and will consider means of structuring the transactions so as to minimize those consequences.


Transactions Subject To Gift Tax, Douglas A. Kahn, Earl M. Colson Jan 1975

Transactions Subject To Gift Tax, Douglas A. Kahn, Earl M. Colson

Articles

The gift tax is imposed on the "transfer of property by gift." The term gift is not expressly defined either in the Code or in the Treasury Regulations. However, section 2512(b), dealing with the valuation of gifts, states that "where property is transferred for less than an adequate and full consideration in money or money's worth," the difference between the value of the property transferred and the consideration received constitutes a gift. Thus, for gift tax purposes, the determination of whether a gift was made does not turn so much on the intent of the transferor as it does on …


Transactions Subject To The Federal Gift Tax, Douglas A. Kahn Jan 1970

Transactions Subject To The Federal Gift Tax, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

The federal gift tax was first enacted in 1924, approximately eight years after the adoption of the estate tax. As originally enacted, the tax was largely ineffective because it was computed on an annual basis without regard to gifts made in prior years.


Gratuitous Partial Assignments, Edwin D. Dickinson Nov 1921

Gratuitous Partial Assignments, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"Is it possible to make an effective and irrevocable assignment by way of gift of part of a close action? There are no obvious reasons why it should not be possible. Gifts of a great variety of valuable rights are favored and protected by law. Why not a gift of part of a chose in action?"


Gratuitous Partial Assignments, Edwin D. Dickinson Jan 1921

Gratuitous Partial Assignments, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Is it possible to make an effective and irrevocable assignment by way of gift of part of a chose in action? There are no obvious reasons why it should not be possible. Gifts of a great variety of valuable rights are favored and protected by the law. Why not a gift of part of a chose in action? An answer deduced from the decided cases is not in all respects as certain and satisfactory as one might anticipate. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the answer is problematical. The problem invites interest, not only because it appears …


Substitutional Gifts To Classes, John R. Rood Jan 1918

Substitutional Gifts To Classes, John R. Rood

Articles

In some recent cases we have fresh reminder of the futility of Sir William Grant's distinction between original and substitutional gifts, a rule over which courts have quarreled and disagreed ever since it was promulgated, and which never was applied to the exclusion of anyone without disappointing the wish of the testator. In speaking of this rule in Re Hickey, [1917], 1 Ch. D. 601, 604, Neville, J., says: "The alleged principle seems to be that the meaning of the word 'substitute' involves the idea of replacing one thing by another. One cannot 'substitute' something for nothing. The proposition appears …


Contingent Gifts And Incorporation By Reference, John R. Rood Jan 1918

Contingent Gifts And Incorporation By Reference, John R. Rood

Articles

The courts have had great difficulty in reconciling certain contingent gifts with the statutes requiring wills to be in writing duly executed. At first glance there appears no inconsistency, but in practice troubles accumulate.


The Disposition To Be Made Of Property The Subject Of A Power If The Power Is Not Exercised, John R. Rood Mar 1917

The Disposition To Be Made Of Property The Subject Of A Power If The Power Is Not Exercised, John R. Rood

Articles

The object sought in this article is to collect and classify the cases in which the courts have passed on the question as to what shall be done with property over which a power of appointment has been given; when it finally turns out for some reason that the power has not been exercised. It is not the object to establish any particular thesis, but rather to ascertain how the adjudicated cases stand.


A Statement To The Alumni, Henry M. Bates Jan 1915

A Statement To The Alumni, Henry M. Bates

Articles

Plans are now complete for the demonstration by Michigan alumni of their loyalty to and interest in their Alma Mater. Michigan has never before called upon all of her former students to help her in any great movement for the benefit of the entire University. It has required some all comprehending movement like the Union to afford this opportunity, but now the time and the opportunity are at hand, when Michigan men may put their shoulders to the wheel and carry through a project, which "Prexy" Angell, President Hutchins, the Board of Regents, the Senate Council and the Alumni Association …


Unenforceable Trusts And The Rule Against Perpetuities, George L. Clark Jan 1911

Unenforceable Trusts And The Rule Against Perpetuities, George L. Clark

Articles

Bequests upon trust to use the income thereof each year in keeping a monument or grave in repair, or in saying masses,8 or in having a brass band to play at the testator's grave each year on the anniversary of the testator's death9 have been held invalid, and the reason given is that the gift is a "perpetuity"1 or is in "violation of the rule against perpetuities."11 What do the courts mean by calling such a gift a "perpetuity?" And in what way, if at all, could the bequest be so changed as to avoid the "rule against perpetuities" and …