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Taxation-Federal

All Faculty Scholarship

2014

Estate tax

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What's Wrong With A Federal Inheritance Tax?, Wendy G. Gerzog Apr 2014

What's Wrong With A Federal Inheritance Tax?, Wendy G. Gerzog

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Scholars have proposed a federal inheritance tax as an alternative to the current federal transfer tax, but there are serious flaws with that idea. In existing inheritance tax systems, those problems include: (1) different tax rates and exemptions based on the decedent’s relationship to the beneficiary; (2) the lack of a tax on lifetime gratuitous transfers, including gifts with retained interests or control; and (3) the persistence of most current valuation distortion abuses. In any inheritance tax model, moreover, there would be significantly decreased compliance rates and increased administrative costs because by focusing on the transferees instead of the transferor, …


Van Alen: A Reasonable Consistency, Wendy G. Gerzog Jan 2014

Van Alen: A Reasonable Consistency, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

In Van Alen, the Tax Court held that the duty of consistency required that two of the decedent’s children use the section 2032A basis valuation figures to determine gain on the sale of their interest in the decedent’s ranch, which was left to them in trust. The siblings had argued that their stepmother erroneously completed their father’s estate tax return.