Clemency v. Department of Revenue

Siddoway, J.*

¶1 The estates of Barbara J. Nelson and Sharon M. Bracken (Estates) challenge the efforts of the Washington State Department of Revenue (DOR) to treat *554them as having engaged in a present taxable transfer of assets that were actually transferred years ago by Ms. Nelson’s and Ms. Bracken’s late husbands’ estates. As authority for finding and taxing fictional present transfers, DOR relies on the legislature’s adoption in 2005 of definitions from the federal estate tax regime. For federal estate tax purposes, the United States Department of the Treasury’s authority to presently tax…