Bridget J. Crawford (Pace) has posted The Tax Regulation of Contractual Intimacy: Powers of Attorney on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Powers of attorney are among the most common and the most abused of all estate planning instruments. Newspapers and court cases are full of stories of alleged wrongdoing by agents who, whether due to misunderstanding or overt abuse, exceed the authorities given to them by the principal. Part I of this article provides an overview of the creation, scope, limits and use of powers of attorney. Part II examines the estate and gift tax consequences of creating a broad power of attorney. Part III describes how a fiduciary analysis of an attorney-in-fact’s authorities is consistent with the draft Uniform Durable Power of Attorney Act (the "Act"). By theorizing the principal/attorney-in-fact relationship as a fiduciary one, the Act comports with its wealth transfer tax treatment. Part IV considers the implications of the Act’s efforts to regularize powers of attorney. By making the principal/attorney-in-fact relationship more standard, some tax and estate planning professionals may shift their business practices in unexpected ways. Part V interprets the projected commodification of the principal/attorney-in-fact relationship in light of other cultural practices of outsourcing work that a person cannot (or will not) do himself or herself and for which the person cannot find willing and able family members.

The need for more regularized and protective laws governing powers of attorney arise out of changes in the way people live in the United States and other Western nations. The majority of Americans, for example, do not live in close proximity to a family member. Most people do not have a relative who, as a practical matter, could take care of one’s financial or other legal affairs on a routine basis. Furthermore traditionally-constructed families no longer function as the organizing principal for an individual’s economic activities or individual affinities. Therefore legally intimacy is and should be a bargained-for consideration. The changes proposed by the Uniform Powers of Attorney Act are generally consistent with changing experiences of the family and should facilitate a shift in understanding legal intimacy as deriving not from the structure of families and other family-like relationships, but from their very function.