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would only get 22 percent. Even if the Trust had agreed to
terminate the policy early, NCF would merely get back the
unearned premiums that it prepaid. In Addis, we reasoned that if
the charity’s premium payments were big enough to keep the policy
viable, and the family trust itself would receive a significant
portion of the death benefit, the value of those payments to the
trust had to be greater than zero.
The facts of this case show that Roark was getting an even
better deal than the taxpayers in the other split-dollar cases
that we’ve decided. In both Addis and Weiner, the charity would
have received a greater proportion of the insurance proceeds than
the families’ trusts. Here, the proportions were reversed: the
Roark family, through the Trust, would actually receive more
money than NCF, and so we easily find that Mr. Roark would
receive value as a result of NCF paying the premiums. And while
it is true that, after Mrs. Roark’s death, it was the Roark’s
daughter who was trustee, we reasoned in Weiner, that this change
in which relative would collect on the policy did not change our
conclusion that the donor “expected that he would benefit from
his payments * * *.”
Roark does of course have the letter that NCF sent him,
stating that he received nothing of value in exchange for his
contributions. And it is true that a taxpayer ordinarily may
rely on a charity’s estimate of fair market value. Sec. 1.170A-
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