Horace S. Miller, Jr. And Isabel M. Campbell, Co-Executors of the Estate of Isabella Steel Miller, Deceased v. United States

OPINION OF THE COURT

FREEDMAN, Circuit Judge:

This case presents the recurring problem of the taxability as part of a decedent’s estate of a power of appointment over trust corpus which the decedent possessed but did not exercise. Here, as in other such cases, the legal question is mixed with the apparent injustice of the imposition of an estate tax on a power which was never exercised and which would clearly have been exempt from tax as a limited power had the words of grant been more narrowly chosen.

Decedent’s husband created by his will a residuary trust whose net income was to be paid to…