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memorial to her late husband. The trustees eventually paid
$6,000 to Grace Church, an entity operated exclusively for
religious purposes, and claimed a deduction for a charitable
bequest under section 303(a)(3) of the Revenue Act of 1926, ch.
27, 44 Stat. 72, a predecessor of section 2055. In disallowing
the deduction, the Board of Tax Appeals said:
There is nothing in the will which restricts the
trustees in their use of the bequest as to the nature,
kind or type of "memorial" which they are to establish
for either the decedent's parents or her husband. The
word "memorial" does not itself connote any limitation
within the language of the statute. It means only
something to perpetuate a memory. Conceivably and
reasonably a memorial might have been adequately and
satisfactorily established without any religious,
charitable, scientific, literary, or educational
purpose. It happens that the trustees, in their
discretion, contributed the legacies to a religious
organization; but this was not by virtue of any
limiting mandate of the will. Mississippi Valley Trust
Co. v. Commissioner, 72 Fed. (2d) 197 [8th Cir. 1934],
affirming 28 B. T. A. 387. * * * [Estate of Taylor v.
Commissioner, 40 B.T.A. at 376.]
Paris v. United States, 381 F. Supp. 597 (N.D. Ohio 1974),
quoted the above excerpt from Estate of Taylor v. Commissioner,
supra, and then applied the rule it states to deny a charitable
deduction for a memorial bequest. Even though the executor used
the funds earmarked for a memorial to establish an educational
scholarship fund for religious students, the lack of directions
and restrictions limiting the executor's discretion in carrying
out the terms of the bequest to a religious, charitable,
literary, scientific, or educational institution was dispositive
in the Court's decision to disallow the deduction.
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