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constitutes the estate’s central argument that it exercised
ordinary business care and prudence and could not, without undue
hardship, sell sufficient property to pay its Federal estate tax
by the payment due date. The plan essentially involved selecting
five properties to sell, advertising and marketing those
properties, and, once they were sold, selecting additional
properties to sell.
Mr. Renbarger chose to sell a mere five properties from an
estate composed of more than 60 properties. He advertised the
properties by placing a single “for sale” sign on each with a
phone number. Mr. Renbarger waited, no bids were received, and
the deadline, extended twice, passed without payment. One person
contacted the estate regarding a property but expressed no
interest upon hearing the asking price. Mr. Renbarger did not
enlist the assistance of a professional real estate broker and
instead relied on his own expertise and that of a small team,
which included his two sons.
Mr. Renbarger attributes his lack of success in selling the
estate’s five properties to macroeconomic events including a
slowing economy, the national recession beginning March 2001, the
collapse of Enron, the State and national declines in real
income, the evaporation of stock investor wealth, and even the
uncertainties of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and the events of
September 11, 2001. We are unconvinced by Mr. Renbarger’s
argument, particularly considering that most of the events
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