Court Opinion

ID: 9445330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:25:18.164856+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:12.625196
License: Public Domain

DENMAN, Chief Judge
(concurring in the result).
The entire long discussion of the question when the “nature” of a testamentary gift is fixed is by the mark. Everyone agrees that its “nature” is fixed by the testament itself at the time of the death of the testator. By the mark also is the discussion of Detroit Bank v. United States, 317 U.S. 329, 63 S.Ct. 297, 87 L.Ed. 304, holding that the time when tax liens on testamentary gifts attach is on the death of the testator. Nor can it be assumed that the Detroit Bank case, decided on January 4,1943, overrules sub silentio the case of Helvering v. Stuart, 317 U.S. 154, 63 S.Ct. 140, 87 L.Ed. 154, decided only several weeks earlier on November 14, 1942, holding that the state law determines the legal character of testamentary trust instruments.1 The discussion of the disadvantages of having to consider state law to determine provisions of federal legislation well could have been written before Erie Ry. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188.
The question here is whether the taxing statute on its face completely controls the disposition of the case regardless of what the state law may be. I agree that the Estate is not entitled to the deduction claimed because the specific provision 26 U.S.C. § 812(e) (1) (F) excepts the testamentary half interest of Mrs. Shedd from the “general” provisions of Section 812(1) (A).
This clearly appears by placing the general and specific provisions (A) and (F) in juxtaposition as follows:
“(1) Allowance of marital deduction
“(A) In general. An amount equal to the value of any interest in property which passes or has passed from the decedent to his surviving spouse, but only to the extent that such interest is included in determining the value of the gross estate.
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“(F) Trust with power of appointment in surviving spouse. In the case of an interest in property passing from the decedent in trust, if under the terms of the trust his surviving spouse is entitled for life to all the income from the corpus of *359the trust, payable annually or at more frequent intervals, with power in the surviving spouse to appoint the entire corpus free of the trust (exercisable in favor of such surviving spouse, or of the estate of such surviving spouse, or in favor of either, whether or not in each case the power is exercisable in favor of others), and with no power in any other person to appoint any part of the corpus to any person other than the surviving spouse—
“(i) the interest so passing shall, for the purposes of subparagraph (A), be considered as passing to the surviving spouse, and * * * ”
(Emphasis added.)
There could not be a case more certainly requiring the application of the doctrine expressio unius est exclusio alterius. Subparagraph (F) providing for a deduction only where the “surviving spouse is entitled for life to All the income from the corpus of the trust” would be meaningless if Mrs. Shedd’s half-mterest in the income is also deductible.

. Jerome v. United States, 1943, 318 U.S. 101, 104, 63 S.Ct. 483, 87 L.Ed. 640. Cf. Harris v. Commissioner, 1950, 340 U.S. 106, 71 S.Ct. 181, 95 L.Ed. 111; Rodgers v. United States, 5 Cir., 1955, 218 F.2d 760.