Law Commons^™

Controversies In Tax Law: A Matter Of Perspective (Introduction), Anthony C. Infanti

Book Chapters

This volume presents a new approach to today’s tax controversies, reflecting that debates about taxation often turn on the differing worldviews of the debate participants. For instance, a central tension in the academic tax literature — which is filtering into everyday discussions of tax law — exists between “mainstream” and “critical” tax theorists. This tension results from a clash of perspectives: Is taxation primarily a matter of social science or social justice? Should tax policy debates be grounded in economics or in critical race, feminist, queer, and other outsider perspectives?

To capture and interrogate what often seems like a chasm …

Not All Defined Value Clauses Are Equal, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

Defined value clauses used to value nonmarketable family limited partnership (FLP) interests create valuation distortions and other public policy issues. This paper describes these abuses and proposes the employment of restrictions similar to those applied to pecuniary formula marital deduction clauses.

The article explains how pecuniary formula marital deduction provisions created valuation distortions by allowing for undervaluation of the marital share that were remedied by the IRS’s Rev. Proc. 64-19 and the enactment of section 2056(b)(10). The article analyzes recent case law expanding the use of defined value clauses into the FLP area and criticizes the courts for not applying …

The New Super-Charged Pat (Power Of Appointment Trust), Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

This article proposes to repeal the QTIP provisions in order to collect revenue now for transfers that are essentially transfers to third parties and not to the decedent's spouse. Because there are advantages of increased flexibility attendant to a QTIP as opposed to a PAT, this article proposes to take those repealed QTIP benefits and attach them to the PAT, which would greatly enhance that marital deduction trust form. A super-charged PAT would thereby be able to preserve the decedent's GST tax exemption (like a reverse QTIP), create a decedent's by-pass trust by allowing a PAT (or a partial PAT) …

Shapiro: Palimony And The Estate Tax, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

In Estate of Shapiro, the Ninth Circuit held that an individual had a valid palimony claim under Nevada state law. However, the issue was whether the decedent’s estate qualified for a deduction for that claim under federal estate tax law.

The Profits And Penalties Of Kinship: Conflicting Meanings Of Family In Estate Tax Law, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article critically examines the conflicting estate tax definitions of family in I.R.C. Sections 2036, 2032A and 6166. The sections use terms such as family and related in ways that conflict with each other and with lay understanding of the terms. From an historical perspective, the multiple estate tax definitions reflect the Code sections' distinct purposes. From a theoretical perspective, they acknowledge the personal and economic interconnectedness within families as well as diversity in the structure of family arrangements. The existing definitions of family fall short, however, in that they fail to recognize the full range of associational arrangements that …

Taxing Personhood: Estate Taxes And The Compelled Commodification Of Identity, Ray D. Madoff

Ray D. Madoff

In this Article, Professor Madoff explores the ways in which the blunt tools of the wealth tax, and in particular the estate tax, uses a one-size-fits-all system to impose a tax on all property interests owned at the time of one’s death. Professor Madoff illustrates the ways in which these blunt tools can produce problematic results by examining their application to the right of publicity, a newly recognized property interest. Professor Madoff suggests that the imposition of the estate tax can force the commodification of an individual’s identity, regardless of one’s desire to refrain from marketing their identity, and explores …

The Estate Tax Marital Deduction, Harold Dubroff, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

The estate tax marital deduction, section 2056 of the Internal Revenue Code, was enacted in 1948, along with the split-income provisions of the income tax law and the marital deduction and split-gift provisions of the gift tax law. The purpose was to give married residents of common law states approximately the same federal tax advantages that were available to married residents of community property states. Ordinarily, upon the death of a married resident of a community property state, only one-half of the community property is taxed in the decedent's estate. Section 2056 achieves approximately the same result for married residents …

Transfers Of Joint Property In Contemplation Of Death: A Call For Immediate Statutory Revision, L. Hart Wright

Michigan Law Review

For years the Tax Court sided with the government and the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in asserting that the contemplation-of-death provision of the estate tax act was sufficiently elastic to include the tax concept of ownership reflected in the joint-property provision of the same act. The alliance between those tribunals on this point was recently broken, however, when the Tax Court shifted to the competing view supported by taxpayers and the appellate court for the Ninth Circuit. It now believes that the two provisions mentioned above are complete strangers even though at one time these two were …