Standard homo economicus lives in a world of complete markets and maximizes utility which is a function of his personal consumption. This approximation cannot account for parents making transfers to adult children, children taking care of old parents, nor for gifts, inheritance and many other...

The United States Constitution forbids a direct Federal tax on wealth. Instead, the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes are permissible only to the extent they are imposed on “transfers” of wealth. But the term “transfer” is not defined in the Internal Revenue Code or...