With an emphasis on tax planning, Federal Taxation of Wealth Transfers: Cases and Problems integrates stimulating problems with statutes, regulations, and cases to create a highly teachable and student-friendly casebook. This casebook emphasizes problem solving, statutory construction, and policy-analysis skills, and is ideal for 2- or 3-credit courses in estate and gift taxation. The Fourth Edition has been updated to incorporate the 2012 American Taxpayer Relief Act provisions and the final portability regulations. It offers new case law, analyses and problems regarding private annuities, net gifts, and ascertainable standards. The text has been expanded to feature new cases, administrative rulings, and studies. Existing cases and text have been edited or deleted to highlight essential themes. The casebook is logically organized but its flexible organization accommodates reorganizing material to fit individual course structures, and could be used for a basic wealth transfer tax class or to complement either a wills and trust course or an estate planning course.

This treatise contains a comprehensive discussion of the estate and gift tax provisions of the IRC. Practical problems of estate and gift tax planning are analyzed in depth. Gift tax deductions and credits against estate taxes are examined in the work.

The modern federal wealth transfer tax regime traces back to the Revenue Act of 1916. Today, the federal wealth transfer tax regime consists of three separate taxes: (1) the federal estate tax; (2) the federal gift tax; and (3) the federal generation-skipping transfer tax. All three taxes are excises imposed on the gratuitous transfer of wealth by individuals. Yamamoto and Donaldson's Black Letter Outline on Federal Wealth Transfer Taxes thoroughly covers and explains all three types of federal wealth transfer taxes.