New York Estate Planning & Elder Law Blog
The United States Tax Court recently decided a case where the issue was the role that a tax return due to the decedent played in overall estate tax liability. The Estate of Russell Badgett, Jr. et al v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2015-226 (Nov. 24, 2015) dealt with a very large overpayment of taxes by the decedent during his last full calendar year of his life. The estate failed to include the value for the tax returns that Mr. Badgett, Jr. (or his estate as it were) received, which ultimately undervalued the estate a rather significant amount.
The Internal Revenue Service indeed caught this accounting error and sent out a notice of deficiency approximately a year and a half after the filing of the last tax return. The Tax Court ruled in favor of the Internal Revenue Service because estate tax returns must list all the property that an estate owns. The Tax Court cited an United States Supreme Court case that held that state law defines what property rights, while federal law defines what property is taxed. Morgan v. Commissioner, 309 U.S. 78, 80 (1940).
THE CASE OF MR. BADGETT, JR.