Prevent Conflicts While Keeping a Present InterestPrevent Conflicts While Keeping a Present Interest

Probably to the disappointment of the nuns and Jesuits who spent the better part of 13 years educating me about biblical scripture, one of the passages I remember most is Chapter 3, Verse 13 from the Gospel of Luke.  In this passage, John the Baptist told the tax collectors “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.”  About two millennia later, in Minkel v. Commissioner, a Tax Court delivered a similar message when the Internal Revenue Service tried to disallow annual exclusion gifts to a trust because the trust contained a religious arbitration clause and an in terrorem clause.[1]  The IRS argued these provisions made the withdrawal rights held by beneficiaries illusory, meaning they weren’t gifts of present interest and therefore d...