Shukert v. Allen’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

33 federal appellate · 11 district · 18 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 111 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It seems to us tolerably plain that, when the grantor parts with all his interest in the property to other persons in trust, with no thought of avoiding taxes, the fact that the income vested in the beneficiaries was to be accumulated for them, instead of being handed to them to spend, does not make the trust one intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment at or after the grantor’s death.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Reinecke v. Northern Trust Co. · St. Louis Union Trust Co. v. Becker

2. ““In its plan and scope the tax is one imposed on transfers at death or made in contemplation of death and is measured by the value at death of the interest which is transferred. * * * One may freely give his property to another by absolute gift without subjecting himself or his estate to a tax, but we are asked to say that this statute means that he may not make a gift inter vivos, equally absolutely and complete, without subjecting it to a tax if the gift takes the form of a life estate in one with remainder over to another at or after the donor’s death. It would require plain and compelling language to justify so incongruous a result and we think it is wanting in the present statute. * * * “In the light of the general purpose of the statute and the language of section 401 explicitly imposing the tax on net estates of decedents, we think it at least doubtful whether the trusts or interests in a trust intended to be reached by the phrase in section 402 (c) ‘to take effect in possession or enjoyment at or after his death,’ include any others than those passing from the possession, enjoyment or control of the donor at his death and so taxable as transfers at death under section 401. That doubt must be resolved in favor of the taxpayer. * * *»”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Reinecke v. Northern Trust Co. · Tait v. Safe Deposit & Trust Co.

3. ““The transfer was immediate and out and out, leaving no interest remaining in the testator. The trust in its terms has no reference to his death but is the same and unaffected whether he lives or dies. . . . [T]he interest of the children respectively was vested as soon as the instrument was executed, even though it might have been divested as to any one of them in favor of his issue if any, or of the surviving beneficiaries, if he died before the termination of the trust. ... It seems plain . . . that the testator was not acting in contemplation of death as a motive for his act, or otherwise, except in the sense that he was creating a fund intended to secure his children from want in their old age . . . .” p. 547.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. The People v. Northern Trust Co. · In Re the Estate of Saroff