The temporary repeal of the federal estate and GST taxes in 2010 has raised issues about how formula clauses in wills and trusts will operate for deaths in 2010. Such clauses generally fund the marital trust portion of the estate, which receives an unlimited marital deduction and is therefore tax-free on the death of the first spouse, with the least amount needed to result in zero tax being paid at the death of the first spouse.  When the exemption was $1 million dollars for example, a person dying with a $3 million estate would result in $1 million being funded to the family bypass trust, and the remaining $2 million funded to the marital trust, thereby avoiding any estate tax at the first death.  The problem in 2010 is that the minimum amount needed to avoid estate tax is zero, because there is no estate tax for this year only.  This means that in the above example, all $3 million would go to the family trust, and none will be passed to the marital trust.  This may leave the surviving spouse feeling destitute.  Several states have addressed this situation by enacting statutes which provide a special rule of construction under which formula clauses that refer to certain estate and GST tax terms will generally be construed as referring to the federal estate tax and GST tax laws which applied to estates of decedents dying on December 31, 2009. While Mississippi is not among them, the following states have enacted such legislation: Indiana (Indiana Code §29-1-6-1(n)), Maryland (Md. Code Ann. Est. & Trusts §11-110),
Nebraska (L. 2010, LB1047),  Utah (Utah Code Ann. §75-3-917), Virginia (Va. Code Ann. §64.1-62.4), Washington (L. 2010, S6831), and  Wisconsin (L. 2010, S670).