In today's Harvard Crimson, Caspersen Taxes May Be Suspect:

Harvard Law School’s biggest donor, who died last week in an apparent suicide, may have owed up to $100 million in back taxes and fines, the New York Times reported this week.

Finn M.W. Caspersen, who gave over $30 million to the Law School and tens of millions more to other philanthropic enterprises, may have been implicated in a sweeping federal investigation of offshore bank accounts, said the Times’ anonymous source. …

According to the Times’ source, federal authorities have placed liens on the personal trusts of Caspersen’s four sons, all of whom also attended the Law School.

The TaxProf Email Discussion Group today debated whether the IRS could clawback any of the $30 million gift to Harvard Law School under the transferee liability rules of § 6901.  Mary O'Keeffe (Union College) noted that much of the $30 million may be in the form of a pledge, and Ellen Aprill (Loyola-L.A.) directed the group to a 1993 article, Pledges to Nonprofit Organizations: Are They Enforceable and Must They Be Enforced?, which concludes:

When it comes to enforcing pledges, charities have demonstrated a timidity not characteristic of their solicitation practices. Charities seem to fear the loss of subscribers if it became practice to sue to enforce the subscriptions. Indeed, a review of the reported cases shows that the great majority of such actions were brought only after the death of the subscriber, when the charity was willing to dispute with the heirs over the assets.