University of Baltimore Law ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law All Faculty Scholarship Faculty Scholarship Summer 2009 Families for Tax Purposes: What about the Steps Wendy G. Gerzog University of Baltimore School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac Part of the Business Organizations Law Commons, Estates and Trusts Commons, Taxation- Federal Commons, Taxation-Federal Estate and Gift ommonC s, and the Tax Law Commons Recommended Citation Families for Tax Purposes: What about the Steps, 42 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 805 (2009) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. FAMILIES FOR TAX PURPOSES: WHAT ABOUT THE STEPS? Wendy C. Gerzog* At least 4.4 million families in the United States are blended ones that include stepchildren and stepparents. For tax purposes, these "steps" receive preferential treatment as a result of their status because, on the one hand, they are treated as family members for many income tax benefit sections, but on the other hand, are excluded from the definition offamily member for business entity attribution pur poses and for gift and estate tax anti-abuse provisions. In the interests offairness and uniformity, steps should be treated as family members for all tax purposes where they act like their biological or adoptive counterparts, regardless of whether such treatment would decrease or increase their tax burden.