The unlimited Marital Deduction allows for transfers to US citizen spouses during life or at death to remain tax-free.

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United States, Edith Windsor was denied the marital deduction for estate taxes paid after the death of her spouse, Thea Spyer.

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By virtue of the marital deduction, there is no estate tax.

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Among them are the right to file a joint return (which is not always quite as much as it is cracked up to be) and the unlimited marital deduction for estate tax purposes.

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Without these, then the restriction is so nebulous as to be unenforceable, with these the estate may not be able to take a marital deduction, since his widow could have her rights taken away by someone else (i.e. whoever enforces this restriction).

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This means from a tax perspective that there are issues on allocation of the royalties between principle and income, that some trust (such as marital deduction trusts) might not be able to qualify for a deduction if funded with copyrights, and so forth.

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Although some of this planning is used for smaller estates, more standard planning (gifts within annual gift exclusion or for medical or tuition expenses, use of the lifetime exclusion of spouses, use of the marital deduction, etc.) is used to substantially reduce or eliminate tax liability.

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Tax experts say one of the biggest issues that comes up quickly among Americans is the so-called unlimited marital-deduction privilege.

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