Abstract

The study moves from a concise recognition of Italian succession law and its evolution in legal experience, noting how this branch of the law is offset from property and family law, which represent an important key to understanding inheritance law. A specific theme is addressed: the criteria for determining the value of donations concerning business assets made by the deceased during his lifetime. Civil rules on the theoretical summation and on collation are examined in the light of widespread doctrinal and jurisprudential interpretation, detecting the most critical aspects. This paper offers an alternative interpretation to the estimation principle «at the time of the opening of the succession», which takes into account the interests underlying the rules on collation and therefore aims at adapting the meaning of the legislative statement to the content of the situation that needs to be settled. It reaches the conclusion that the hermeneutical solution for the evaluation of donations of productive goods, for the purposes of theoretical summation and of collation, should be that of the value «at the time of the donation», as is the case of family pacts and in the field of indirect taxation.