[Spats McGee]

Perhaps I shouldn't have said "the back" of the 4473, but those are the instructions I quoted above.

Unless I am mistaken, the term "straw sale" is descended from an old practice in property law, and here's how that practice worked, assuming I remember my days in Property Law correctly. (Well, it's a little hazy in my memory, but I'll lay it out as best I can.) If a person owned property and got married, the title would remain in his name, but he and his wife would be tenants-in-common (or maybe joint tenants, I forget). Anyway, if he wanted to create a tenancy-by-the-entirety (a type of ownership only available to married persons), it was difficult because the law didn't recognize transfers between man and wife, due to their status as one legal unit. Accordingly, if the couple wanted to create this tenancy-by-the-entirety, they would "sell the property to a straw man," usually their lawyer, who would immediately sell the property back to them both, creating the tenancy-by-the-entirety.