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to the postmarital agreement was Cynthia Bongard’s financial
statement, which included the value of her interest in BFLP and
QTIP Trust. QTIP Trust was funded by decedent’s giving it WCB
Holdings class A membership units on March 15, 1997. Decedent’s
gift of a small portion of his BFLP interest to his wife does not
establish that his prior transfer of all of his class B
membership units to BFLP had a significant nontax motive.
Decedent’s gift of the 7.72-percent BFLP interest to Cynthia
Bongard does not establish a significant nontax reason for
decedent to transfer all 4,621,166 WCB Holdings class B
membership units he owned to BFLP. The motive for the transfer
of all of decedent’s class B membership units to BFLP was not to
fund the postmarital agreement. Rather, decedent used part of
his BFLP interest to fund the postmarital agreement simply
because that was where the assets rested when the agreement was
completed. The vast majority of decedent’s BFLP interest was
never transferred in the almost 2 years before his death.
The estate’s credit protection argument is also unpersuasive
because WCB Holdings served this function for decedent. In fact,
decedent via letter stated that “by holding a majority of my
assets in the limited liability company or the limited
partnership, I will be providing a greater amount of protection
for those assets from both creditors and lawsuits.” Decedent
contributed his Empak stock to WCB Holdings in exchange for WCB
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