The offloading of cargo from larger to smaller vessels is a necessity in some confined ports, but doesn’t work when limited liability companies or limited partnerships are drawn up alongside well-heeled elders to unload goodies in anticipation of estate taxes.

Such is the case of the well-meaning grandnephew ex’r in Estate of Anne Milner Fields, Deceased, Bryan K. Milner, Executor, T. C. Memo. 2024-90, filed 9/26/24. Who better to expatiate on a classic Texican matriarch than Judge Elizabeth A. (“Tex”) Copeland?

The late Anne was a highschool graduate secretary who married a highroller in what my native-born Texan granddaughters call “th’awl bidniz.” When her spouse died, she showed herself a true Mustang, abandoning the social whirl and going to SMU for accounting and business courses, consulting business partners, and ultimately “(H)er schooling, charisma, drive, and curiosity yielded good business decisions, which over time compounded into considerable personal wealth.” T. C. Memo. 2024-90, at p. 3.

The late Anne’s ex’r was her devoted protege, and he took care of her in her declining years, seeing off dishonest caregivers and calling the cops on scammers. He had POA, but found one of Anne’s banks didn’t like them, so he got his accountant and an attorney to set up a couple intermediaries (hi, Judge Holmes), whereon to offload $15 million of Annie’s goodies, leaving her with about $2.8 million and a hefty estate tax bill. He had to claw back money from the offloaders to pay legacies and tax.

Anne of course retained enough control to get the offloaded goodies back into her gross estate. While there was a transfer to the intermediaries, it wasn’t for reasonably equivalent value.

Judge Tax Copeland, a CPA herself before ascending the bench, sorts it out, shows IRS got their numbers wrong but lets them stand (it helps the petitioner).

No good faith reliance to defeat the chops, as what the advisers did was too good to be true.