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effected as of October 31, 2000, when decedent died.4
Furthermore, this construction of the legally determinative
settlement agreement is corroborated by the documentation
contained in the record with respect to the Allstate and Safeco
annuity contracts. Both contracts reflect decedent’s estate as
the beneficiary, and there is no evidence that any amending
change of beneficiary had been made at the time of her death.
Given the foregoing, the Court will analyze inclusion of the
annuities under the rubric of section 2033. The critical inquiry
thus becomes whether, and to what extent, decedent held a
4 The examiner who audited the estate tax return testified
at trial that the estate represented at some point that the
annuities were payable to a trust created after the date of
death. The estate never challenged that assertion. The estate
then, and only on reply brief, twice referenced trusts. The
first mention is set forth below:
While the funds were to provide care to the decedent
during her lifetime, the ultimate disposition of those
funds were [sic] not controlled by the decedent’s
estate, but by her parents through their powers of
attorney. Indeed, these powers were exercised to
transfer the remaining annuity payments to trusts
established by the parents, consistent with the control
powers given to them under the Agreement. [Emphasis
added.]
Second, in the context of explaining why the initial probate
inventory included the value of the annuities while later
inventories did not, the estate commented that “the annuities
were never paid to or a part of decedent’s probate estate, but
instead were transferred to trusts created by the parents.”
These remarks, when taken in the contexts presented, support an
inference that any redirection of annuity payments to a trust or
trusts took place subsequent to decedent’s death. The estate
does not otherwise mention a trust or trusts or base any specific
argument on the existence of such an entity.
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