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valuing the transfers under section 2511(a). After all, the gift
tax was enacted to protect the estate tax, and the two taxes are
to be construed in pari materia. See Merrill v. Fahs, 324 U.S.
308, 313 (1945). The estate and gift taxes are different from an
inheritance tax, which focuses on what the individual donee-
beneficiaries receive; the estate and gift taxes are taxes whose
base is measured by the value of what passes from the transferor.
I would hold, contrary to the majority and the approach of
Estate of Bosca v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1998-251,4 that the
gross value of what petitioner transferred in the case at hand is
to be measured by including the value of his entire interest in
the leased land.5 I would then value the net gifts by
4 Contrary also to the Commissioner’s concession, in Rev.
Rul. 93-12, 1993-1 C.B. 202, that a donor’s simultaneous equal
gifts aggregating 100 percent of the stock of his wholly owned
corporation to his five children are to be valued for gift tax
purposes without regard to the donor’s control and the family
relationship of the donees. The ruling is wrong because it
focuses on what was received by the individual donees; what is
important is that the donor has divested himself of control. The
cases relied upon by the ruling–-Estate of Bright v. United
States, 658 F.2d 999 (5th Cir. 1981); Propstra v. United States,
680 F.2d 1248 (9th Cir. 1982); Estate of Andrews v. Commissioner,
79 T.C. 938 (1982); Estate of Lee v. Commissioner, 69 T.C. 860
(1978)--address an arguably different question: whether for
estate tax purposes a decedent’s transfer at death of interests
in real property or shares of a family corporation should be
valued by aggregating them with interests in the same property or
shares already held by the decedent’s spouse or siblings.
5 I acknowledge that my sense of the logic of the estate
depletion theory would require unitization of a donor’s same day
gifts of the stock of the same corporation in determining the
significance of parting with but not conveying control, contrary
to Estate of Heppenstall v. Commissioner, a Memorandum Opinion of
this Court dated Jan. 31, 1949, and arguably contrary to cases
that segregate same day gifts for blockage discount purposes,
(continued...)
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