Gift Causa Mortis

We’ve had many brilliant business ideas over the years, but the product we’ll be testing today, our carbon emissions-reducing people shooter (“Why Commute When We Can People-Shoot?”), is by far the most inspired. We figure that, with the right leverage, we can launch people a good half-mile. Once we work out the kinks, we’re hoping to expand the launch range well past the mile mark. As our business partner Jill climbs into the people shooter prototype for its initial test run, she turns to us and says that, if she doesn’t survive, she wants us to have her old Atari.

This is called a gift causa mortis: a gift given by someone who’s fairly certain they’re going to die soon. While we’re a little put off by Jill’s lack of confidence in the prototype, we’re also pretty stoked. Ataris are awesome.

But here’s the deal about gifts causa mortis: they’re not a sure thing. If Jill somehow doesn’t die while being launched across a field in a human catapult, she doesn’t have to give us the Atari. The gift is conditional...and the condition is her demise. Also, if we happen to get struck by lightning and perish before Jill even gets her people shooter helmet on, then we don’t get the Atari. We died before she did, so we can’t collect, and neither can our beneficiaries.

Let’s just say, worst-case scenario, that our people shooter idea doesn’t work out, and we end up with Jill’s Atari. We should be aware that gifts causa mortis are taxed like any other inheritance, and we might end up paying federal estate taxes on what we’ve been given.