‘New Reasons to Remember the Estate Tax of Reversions’

F. Phillip Manns, Jr. (professor of law, Liberty University) has published his article entitled New Reasons to Remember the Estate Taxation of Reversions, 44 Real Prop. Trusts Estates L. J. 324 (2009).  

A synopsis of the article is below:

When a transfer of real property creates a future interest in a party without expressly providing whether that party must survive all others in prior possession, the common law has traditionally refused to imply such a requirement.  Recently, various reform movements have proposed reversing this rule.  Where such a reversal fails to likewise negate the reversion created by the change, the transferor-possessor of the reversion faces complicated tax issues as a result.  In this Article, the author provides an overview of the various attempts to reverse the rule and goes through the complicated actuarial mathematics that are required to assess the tax liability of the possessor of the reversion.