Jay, Down the Rabbit Hole with the IRS' Challenge to Perpetual Conservation Easements, Part Two

Jessica Jay (Conservation Law, P.C.) has published Down the Rabbit Hole with the IRS' Challenge to Perpetual Conservation Easements, Part Two in the Environmental Law Reporter. Here is the abstract:

When the Internal Revenue Service began disallowing gifts of perpetual conservation easements for claimed failures of perpetuity requirements, it tumbled land trusts, landowners, and the U.S. Tax Court down the rabbit hole to a baffling land below. The Service’s drop into matters beyond valuation and into elements intended and necessary for easement durability and flexibility has caused a confusing array of Tax Court decisions.

Part One of this Article examined how the Service lures the land conservation community and the Tax Court into Wonderland distortions, and the precarious tower of cards upon which its legal theories rest. Part Two, here, identifies the fundamental elements of law and the process of law to topple the Service’s card construct, and awaken and return everyone to the world above ground.

Lloyd Mayer