Court Opinion

ID: 9454223
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:39:46.264325+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:01.348953
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
The petition for rehearing makes an appealing argument to the effect that in peculiar circumstances of this case we should not read the statutory requirements for marital deduction literally. The argument is that since the surviving spouse has full and complete right to the property during life except as to gifts to any but charitable objects, and since the power of appointment in the survivor was restricted to some charity, the Congressional purpose would be satisfied by treating the bequest as meeting the marital deduction requirements of Section 2056.
Assuming that we have the power to construe a statute contrary to its literal language in order to achieve the true intent of Congress, c. f. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 159 F.2d 167 (2 Cir., 1947), cert. denied, 331 U.S. 836, 67 S.Ct. 1518, 91 L.Ed. 1848, we do not find this to be a proper case to apply the principle. The simplest answer to the contention here is that there is no *251necessary relation between the “charities” to which the surviving spouse here was permitted to make gifts or bequests and the “charities” covered by Section 2055 of the Internal Revenue Code as limited by Sections 503 and 681. Mr. Batterton’s contractual and testamentary requirements as to his disposition of this estate could have been fully carried out without his ever naming a charity meeting the statutory exemption standards at all.
Thus, we cannot say that Congress was as much interested in exempting from estate tax as a charity exemption the estate here in question as it was in permitting the surviving spouse to have the benefit of a marital deduction if properly established.
The petition is denied.