- 48 - well that the legislative history--such as it is--reveals that the overall purpose of the transition provision was to ratify only unavoidable generation-skipping transfers. There is not, then, an “unambiguously expressed intent” to the contrary. I readily admit that the dissent’s construction, following Bachler and Simpson, is reasonable too. But, as the Sixth Circuit noted in Peoples Federal S&L, “there may be several permissible constructions. If there are gaps left by silence or ambiguity of the statutes in question, agencies may fill the gaps with necessary rules, providing they are reasonable, and courts should not interfere with this process.” 948 F.2d at 300. And reasonableness is all that’s required in step two of Chevron. In gift and estate tax law, the IRS has for years consistently treated a general power of appointment as equivalent to ownership. See Estate of Kurz v. Commissioner, 101 T.C. 44 (1993), supplemented and reconsideration denied T.C. Memo. 1994- 221, affd. 68 F.3d 1027 (7th Cir. 1995). Because the holder of a general power controls the ultimate disposition of trust property, that property is includable in the gross estate for estate tax purposes, section 2041, and the transfer of property by the exercise or release of the power is deemed a transfer by the person in possession of the power, section 2514(b). InPage: Previous 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 Next
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