This never would have happened without the work of your Section. In 1959 Nelson Rockefeller was governor, and his Republicans held both houses of the legislature.
Few states have any gift tax at all.
Those transfer taxes have often been the last straw for people with means and any options. Well, the pols mostly never saw it that way. Enter the Section. Sometime in 1992 or 1993, Eileen Caulfield Schwab, pursuing her Tax Committee work, suggested to Section Chair Bob Taisey that a very small task force should go to work on the politics of adopting a sop tax. She suggested that Joshua Rubenstein would be a good partner for the job, drawing on his Legislation Committee experience.