26 U.S.C. § 2206
Section 2206 · Liability of life insurance beneficiaries
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 38 court decisions — leading case In Re Ogburn's Estate (1965)
Most recently applied in Estate Sheppard Ex Rel. McMorrow v. Schleis (May 2010)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Unless the decedent directs otherwise in his will, if any part of the gross estate on which tax has been paid consists of proceeds of policies of insurance on the life of the decedent receivable by a beneficiary other than the executor, the executor shall be entitled to recover from such beneficiary such portion of the total tax paid as the proceeds of such policies bear to the taxable estate. If there is more than one such beneficiary, the executor shall be entitled to recover from such beneficiaries in the same ratio. In the case of such proceeds receivable by the surviving spouse of the decedent for which a deduction is allowed under section 2056 (relating to marital deduction), this section shall not apply to such proceeds except as to the amount thereof in excess of the aggregate amount of the marital deductions allowed under such section.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1976—Pub. L. 94–455 substituted “the taxable estate” for “the sum of the taxable estate and the amount of the exemption allowed in computing the taxable estate, determined under section 2051” after “policies bear to”.
Effective Date of 1976 Amendment
Amendment by Pub. L. 94–455 applicable to estates of decedents dying after Dec. 31, 1976, see section 2001(d)(1) of Pub. L. 94–455, set out as a note under section 2001 of this title.