The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a district court's decision that a self-prepared will's bequest qualified for the marital deduction, even though its literal wording created a disqualifying terminable interest. The courts found the decedent's handwritten notes of planned revisions to the will and an article he saved on the deduction demonstrated he intended for his estate to claim the deduction.

When Tony Sowder died in 1995, he was survived by his wife, Marie Sowder, and three adult children. Sowder had prepared his own will in 1983, leaving his children a total of $600,000-the amount that could be passed tax-free to a non-spouse at the time. The will ...