Estate of Sachs v. Commissioner
United States Tax Court
88 T.C. 769 (1987)
Facts
Samuel Sachs gifted property totaling more than $2 million to three trusts for the benefit of his grandchildren. The transfers were structured as net gifts. This meant that the gift’s recipients, the trusts, used approximately $600,000 of the transferred property to pay the gift taxes that Sachs owed on the gift transfer. Less than three years later, Sachs died. The commissioner of Internal Revenue (commissioner) (defendant) determined that, under 26 U.S.C. § 2035(b), the $600,000 gift-tax payment was a tax payment on a deathbed gift and should be included in Sachs’s gross estate. Sachs’s estate (plaintiff) petitioned the United States Tax Court for a determination that the gift-tax payment was not part of the gross estate. The estate argued that the clear, unambiguous language of § 2035(b) included gift-tax payments on deathbed gifts only if a payment was made by the decedent or his estate. Because the trusts, not Sachs or his estate, had made the $600,000 payment, the statute did not apply to the payment.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Cohen, J.)
Concurrence (Hamblen, J.)
Dissent (Chabot, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 708,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 44,500 briefs, keyed to 983 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
