Second, much of the wealth transferred at death has never been taxed.

Ownership of the chattel was recognized in other instances, such as transfer at death.

Trusts were developed at common law in England originally to minimize the impact of inheritance taxes arising from transfers at death.

A transfer at death is involuntary, and there are no proceeds from which to pay the tax, nor has there been a conversion of property into anything else.

On the other hand, liberals have never been able to delete a much detested provision in the tax law that cancels all capital gains tax liability when assets are transferred at death.

Proponents of the tax say the term "death tax" is imprecise, and that the term has been used since the nineteenth century to refer to all the death duties applied to transfers at death: estate, inheritance, succession and otherwise.

As for the treatment of capital gains, the President linked his proposed reduction in the rate to a provision that would tax capital gains transferred at death, a step Congress was unwilling to make then and has been unwilling to make since.

The creation of family settlements designed to preserve land within the family, transfer it without feudal duties due to the lords of the fee upon transfer at death, and preserve it from claims of creditors, occupied the ingenuity of many common lawyers during the late Middle Ages.