Estate of Algerine Allen Smith - Page 20




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          involving a claim against an estate, that court followed the                
          reasoning and holding of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth                 
          Circuit and provided the following explanation:                             
               in Estate of Smith, the date of death value was not                    
               established when the Fifth Circuit chose to follow                     
               Ithaca Trust and disregard post-death events.  The date                
               of death value was unknown.  The amount claimed by Ms.                 
               Smith’s estate to be the date of death value was only                  
               the litigation demand amount being made by Exxon at her                
               date of death.  It was therefore necessary for the                     
               Fifth Circuit to request a recalculation upon remand.                  
                    We face a similar situation here.  We conclude                    
               that the Section 2053(a)(3) deduction should be the                    
               value at Mrs. O’Neal’s date of death.  We still,                       
               however, do not know what that value is.  As in Estate                 
               of Smith, it is not necessarily the amount of the                      
               demand being made by the government at Mrs. O’Neal’s                   
               death.  Like the Fifth Circuit, we must remand this                    
               case to the district court for a recalculation of the                  
               deduction.                                                             
               * * *                                                                  
               * * * we find that no case holds that the value at the                 
               date of death is the demand amount, $9,407,226, being                  
               made here by the government at the date of death.  We                  
               therefore vacate the opinion of the district court on                  
               this issue and remand for evidentiary hearing on                       
               valuation.  [Id. at 1275; citations omitted.]                          
          The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit concluded by                  
          providing valuation instructions on remand nearly identical to              
          those provided by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.               
          Id.                                                                         
               In the instant case, the estate’s argument that it is                  
          entitled to deduct the full amount of Exxon’s claim was rejected            
          by the Court of Appeals when it remanded the case for a                     
          determination of the fair market value of Exxon’s claim as of               





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