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Estate tax savings did play an important role in motivating
the transfer to BFLP. The record does not support that the
nontax reasons for BFLP’s existence were significant motivating
factors. The formation of WCB Holdings eliminated direct stock
ownership in Empak and allowed decedent to make gifts without
diversifying the direct ownership of Empak. Messrs. Fullmer and
Bernards testified that an impetus for forming BFLP was to
continue decedent’s gift giving. Decedent, in fact, made
numerous gifts after the formation of BFLP, but not of his BFLP
interest. All of the gifts decedent made were of WCB Holdings
class A membership units, except for the 7.72-percent limited
partnership interest he gave to Cynthia Bongard in 1997. At the
time of BFLP’s formation and at the time of his death, any
additional gifts decedent had contemplated were speculative and
indefinite at best. There was no immediate or definite plan for
such gifts. Such intent is not sufficient to establish that the
transfer of membership units to BFLP was motivated by a
significant nontax reason.
Decedent and Cynthia Bongard entered into a postmarital
agreement on December 10, 1997. For a postmarital agreement to
be valid under Minnesota Statutes section 519.11 (West 1990 &
Supp. 2004), in effect at the time the agreement was entered
into, each spouse needed to have titled in that spouse’s name
property with a total net value exceeding $1,200,000. Attached
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