The Citizens & Southern National Bank, as Administrator and John L. Burge, as Estate of Chester A. Burge, Deceased v. United States

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge:

In this tax dispute we have been summoned to interpret the estate tax marital deduction. While simple in concept, that provision has become more complex with each encrusting precedent. The taxpayers herein seek further complication of that encrustation, requesting this Court to incorporate into the marital de duction provisions the law guiding quilled conveyances of medieval times. However, tax provisions generally are not native to the niceties of conveyancing of yore. Preferring that a taxing statute be given a contemporary construction, we refuse to harken back to…