Estate Taxation of Reciprocal Trusts

As is to be expected, many individuals desire to avoid the inclusion of all their property in their gross estates for Federal estate tax purposes. Counterbalancing this desire is the wish to continue to enjoy all or some of the benefits therefrom during their lifetimes. This has often led to a transfer in trust with the grantor retaining some rights in the property but divesting himself of enough interest so as to create a reasonable expectation of having the value of the property excluded from his gross estate. These often elaborate schemes have proved both successful and unsuccessful depending upon the particular factual situations involved. The purpose of this article is to explore one such type of transfer in view of the Supreme Court\u27s recent decision in United States v. Grace. In order to do so, some preliminary consideration should be given to sections 2036 and 2038 of the Internal Revenue Code in conjunction with previous decisions