Taxation-Federal Estate and Gift Commons^™

The Conflict Between Retirement Planning And Estate Planning: Integrated Qualified-Plan Distributions And Retirement Planning, Bruce J. Temkin

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Wealth Preservation With Asset Protection Trusts, Gideon Rothschild

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

The Death Of The Income Tax (Or, The Rise Of America’S Universal Wage Tax), Edward J. Mccaffery

Indiana Law Journal

The killing of the income tax has not been open and notorious: such is not the style of contemporary politics. As with other markers of progressive social policy—the promises of universal health care, Obamacare, come to mind6—the income tax is dying a death by stealth, albeit stealth played out in plain view. The plot lines of the tragedy are apparent. The individual “income” tax has been split in two. One tax, for the masses, is a simple, increasingly formless wage tax. This wage/income tax adds higher brackets onto the payroll tax, the model toward which the wage/income tax aims, to …

The Tyranny Of Money, Edward J. Mccaffery

Michigan Law Review

The more things change, the more they stay the same. A human activity almost as venerable as the accumulation and opulent display of vast riches is the condemnation of the accumulation and opulent display of vast riches. People have been busily engaged at each for several millennia now. Both continue in full flower as America races into the twenty-first century with its liberal capitalist democracy ascendant around the world, its rich richer than ever, its less-rich curiously lagging behind. Yet figuring out what, exactly, is wrong with the excessive accumulation and opulent display of wealth, on the one hand, and …

A Taxing Time For The Bishop Estate: What Is The I.R.S. Role In Charity Governance?, Evelyn Brody

All Faculty Scholarship

This piece, included in the University of Hawaii Law Review's symposium issue on the Bishop Estate, explores the relationship between the new intermediate sanctions law and the IRS's power to revoke tax exemption under § 501(c)(3). Inspired by the storied setting, I indulge in a fantasy: This article pretends that the IRS revoked the Estate's exemption, and takes the form of the Tax Court declaratory judgment opinion. I reluctantly 'rule' that exemption was not appropriate, because State enforcement action against the trustees was proceeding. (However, this forum allows me to hedge my argument by producing two concurring and one dissenting …

The Unconstitutionality Of Eliminating Estate And Gift Taxes, James G. Wilson

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The recent proposal to eliminate estate and gift taxes is not only immoral and a poor allocation of resources, but also is unconstitutional. Irrespective of their ideology, virtually all American lawyers will initially dismiss this accusation as frivolous because it conflicts with their tradition of equating conceptions of "constitutionality" with United States Supreme Court opinions. The Court has long been highly deferential to Congress in federal tax law cases. It is inconceivable that the current Court would find anything "irrational" in a facially neutral law eliminating all estate and gift taxes. Indeed, if I sat on that bench, I would …

Does The Death Tax Deserve The Death Penalty - An Overview Of The Major Arguments For Repeal Of Federal Wealth-Transfer Taxes , Richard Schmalbeck

Cleveland State Law Review

President Bush campaigned on a platform calling for repeal of the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes, and, within his first month in office, introduced a bill that would accomplish that result. Whether or not these taxes are repealed this year, however, the debate over them will not immediately end. In the spirit of that on-going debate, I offer this essay considering the major arguments that have been made by advocates of repeal. Although I will focus mostly on those arguments in opposition to the existing system, I will begin with a brief description of the federal wealth transfer …

The Unconstitutionality Of Eliminating Estate And Gift Taxes , James G. Wilson

Cleveland State Law Review

This article discusses why the recent proposal to eliminate estate and gift taxes is not only immoral and a poor allocation of resources, but also is unconstitutional. The author argues that the only way to sustain any allegation of unconstitutionality against these tax policy changes is to extend meanings of "constitutionality" beyond the legalistic paradigm of constitutional adjudication. Explaining that to extend notions of constitutionality this additional distance, we would need to resurrect earlier constitutional conceptions from such influential political thinkers as Aristotle, David Hume, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. While pointing out that the United States Constitution embodies a …

How Federal Transfer Taxes Affect The Development Of Property Law , Ira Mark Bloom

Cleveland State Law Review

This topic, How Federal Transfer Taxes Affect the Development of Property Law, makes the basic assumption that, to some extent, property law exists because of the federal wealth transfer tax system. As will be seen, this assumption is correct. In some instances, however, property laws exist because of the federal transfer tax system. I classify such property laws into three categories: the necessary, the appropriate and the unfortunate. In the remainder of this article, I will give examples of federal transfer tax-based property laws in these three categories. By way of illustration, I will primarily rely on statutory laws of …

Federal Transfer Taxes: The Possibility Of Repeal And The Post Repeal World , Joel C. Dobris

Cleveland State Law Review

I do want to focus you on what I now see as the crucial social policy behind transfer taxes in America. And, today I would say, that the death tax, if amended, can vindicate that crucial policy. Rightly or wrongly, I think we do not focus on the key purpose of death taxation in this country. I believe knowing the "secret" makes it easier to explain why the environment is so pro-repeal and it makes it easier for me to prescribe for the future. For better or worse, I believe the crucial purpose of the tax is to assert the …

The Moral Hazard Of The Estate Tax , Carolyn C. Jones

Cleveland State Law Review

The current debate about wealth transfer taxation has its themes of morality as well. Opponents have labeled the tax as “immoral.” Taxation is about morality. It is both useful and necessary to consider moral arguments in the debate about the estate tax. In an area largely consigned to economists and philosophers, it is beneficial to broaden perspectives. One could expand the range of academic disciplines considered-to history, psychology, and sociology, for example. One should also take into account the narratives of those affected by the issue. This essay can only probe into this question, beginning with Andrew Carnegie and the …

Home From The Islands: Domestic Asset Protection Trust Alternatives Impact Traditional Estate And Gift Tax Planning Considerations, John K. Eason

Faculty Articles

As the US becomes increasingly litigious, US citizens are more frequently sheltering their wealth in offshore asset protection trusts, or OAPTs. This article provides a thorough overview of the topic, discussing a variety of pertinent legal information.

Living Trusts In The Unauthorized Practice Of Law: A Good Thing Gone Bad, Angela M. Vallario

All Faculty Scholarship

An elderly man recently lost his wife and visits the lawyer's office for assistance in the administration of her estate. After the attorney expresses her condolences, she asks if his wife had a will. The client reaches into a brown shopping bag and retrieves a two-and-a-half inch black binder containing several trusts. The elderly gentleman and his deceased wife were told this would eliminate the expensive legal nightmare of probate. Unfortunately, like many others, this couple was victimized by a trust mill.

The Tax Of Physics, The Physics Of Tax, Stephen B. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Sometimes ideas from science illuminate muddled legal thinking. Physics teaches that, for every particle of matter, there exists a corresponding particle of anti-matter. A particle of matter and its corresponding particle of anti-matter are identical except that they have opposite electrical charges. A proton's charge is positive, an anti-proton's negative. When matter and anti-matter meet, they produce the most powerful explosion in nature, totally annihilating each other.

With these laws of physics in mind, consider that a donor can make a gift in one of two ways: either by assuming a debt or by transferring as asset. In an instance …