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beneficiaries.” Ahmanson Found. v. United States, 674 F.2d 761,
768 (9th Cir. 1981). Such predistribution transformations are of
a different genre, and must be distinguished from, “changes in
value resulting from the fact that under the decedent’s estate
plan the assets in the gross estate ultimately come to rest in
the hands of different beneficiaries.” Id.
Moreover, as a general premise and absent a predistribution
transformation of the type described above, “the fair market
value of the non-voting stock in the hands of an estate with
sufficient shares of voting stock to ensure the estate’s control
of a corporation cannot be less than the value of the estate’s
voting stock.” Estate of Curry v. United States, 706 F.2d 1424,
1427 & n.2 (7th Cir. 1983). Hence, in such circumstances
stockholdings are typically viewed as an aggregate interest in
the corporate concern.
In the present matter, however, petitioners characterize the
Redemption Agreement as working a transformation which altered
decedent’s interest prior to its distribution. Consequently,
they aver that the interest which passed at death was decedent’s
interest in SSE as impacted by and subject to the terms of the
Redemption Agreement. Respondent, on the other hand, asserts
that decedent’s two-thirds interest in SSE was in no manner
transformed before its distribution from the gross estate.
Rather, according to respondent, the value-lessening restrictions
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