Crummey Trust Generates Large Gift Tax Exclusions.

The petitioners, a married couple, established an irrevocable family trust and transferred property worth $3.262 million to the trust.  The trust named 60 beneficiaries, primarily family members.  The trust language required the trustees to notify all beneficiaries of their right to demand withdrawal of trust funds within 30 days o receiving notice and directed the trustee to make distributions upon receipt of a timely exercised demand notice.  In addition, the trust allowed the trustee to make distributions for the health, education, maintenance or general support of any beneficiary or family member.  The trust also specified that a beneficiary would forfeit trust rights upon opposing distribution decisions of the trustees.  On separate gift tax returns for 2007 the petitioners each claimed annual gift tax exclusion of $12,000 (the maximums per done for 2007) for each of the 60 beneficiaries - $720,000 per spouse.  The IRS denied the exclusions on the basis that the gifts were not present interests because the trustees might refuse to honor a withdrawal demand and have the demand submitted to an arbitration panel (as established in the trust), and the beneficiaries would not seek to enforce their rights in court due to the trust language causing forfeiture if they challenged trustee decisions.  As such, the IRS held that the withdrawal rights of the beneficiaries was illusory and the gifts were not of present interests.  The Court disagreed with the IRS noting that merely seeking arbitration when a trustee breached fiduciary duties by refusing a demand notice did not make the gifts of future interests.  The court also held that the trust forfeiture language only applied to discretionary distributions and did not apply to mandatory withdrawal distributions.  Mikel v. Comr., T.C. Memo. 2015-64.