How Federal Transfer Taxes Affect the Development of Property Law

This topic, How Federal Transfer Taxes Affect the Development of Property Law, makes the basic assumption that, to some extent, property law exists because of the federal wealth transfer tax system. As will be seen, this assumption is correct. In some instances, however, property laws exist because of the federal transfer tax system. I classify such property laws into three categories: the necessary, the appropriate and the unfortunate.

In the remainder of this article, I will give examples of federal transfer tax-based property laws in these three categories. By way of illustration, I will primarily rely on statutory laws of Alaska, California and New York, as well as provisions under the Restatement of Property and Trusts and various Uniform Acts.