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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). In
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