A bump for several legal scholars.
That legal scholar that makes much ado about the signature at the bottom of the tax return is ignoring the fact that the tax return is not filed voluntarily, but under threat of criminal penalties for non-compliance.
Convenient, huh?
Good read. You did a nice job. The state's inheritance tax system is repugnant. There are many who will place a child's name or a close relative or friend's name on their bank account for convenience (so that they can handle bank transactions for them if they are incapacitated.) What they don't realize is if that person they put on their account dies, they will have to pay inheritance tax on one half the value of the bank account, even if they were the only one who put money in. You tell them this and they figure "How will the state ever know?" The state will know because the bank has an employee whos job it is to check the obits every day and plug the names into the computer to see if they have an account at the bank. The bank then tells the state. Same thing goes for safe deposit boxes. A box is sealed and can't be opened until a Dept of Revenue inspector is present at the opening so that they can inventory the box and get their "fair share" of the goodies inside. (Word of caution: don't put your assets in someone else's box- you'll regret it (there's a sexual inuendo in there somewhere) and don't put your kid's stuff in your safe deposit box. Its a mess and should be eliminated.
One other note. Until recently (1994, in fact) there was a 3% tax on assets that passed to a spouse! That included joint assets! The tax was phased out over three years to get down to 0% in 1996 or 97 (I can't remember.)