The Role of the Marital Deduction in Planning Intergenerational Transfers
研究婚姻扣除这一遗产规划工具，分析如何选择最优扣除额以最小化夫妻双方去世时的税负现值，并指出常见的最大化扣除做法未必最优。
Abstract The marital deduction is an important and commonly used estate‐planning tool. The optimal marital deduction should be chosen to minimize the present value of the tax outlays at the deaths of both the husband and wife given the expected growth rate, the appropriate discount rate, the expected time of death of the surviving spouse, the distribution of wealth between the spouses, and the total wealth of both spouses. The typical practice of claiming the maximum marital deduction allowed by law or the amount that just reduces the tax liability of the decedent to zero does not necessarily produce an optimal result.