In 1981, Congress enacted the qualified terminable interest provisions (QTIP) that allow an estate and gift tax marital deduction for the full value of the underlying property where a spouse receives only a qualifying income interest for life and where the executor of the estate or the donor spouse makes a timely election. Generally, however, the availability of the estate and gift tax marital deduction is restricted to the transfer of property ownership itself from one spouse to the other. Congress adopted the QTIP provisions as an extension of its contemporaneous decision to select the marital unit as the unit of taxation for estate and gift taxes. Congress believed that most couples view property acquired during the marriage as “ours.” Therefore, Congress reasoned that as long as the property is subject to transfer taxes when it leaves the marital unit it is not necessary that the surviving spouse own, or control the ownership of, the underlying property. However, the reality is that only one spouse (the donor spouse or decedent) controls the transfer of the underlying property. Making a QTIP election, including naming the ultimate beneficiary of the property, does not in fact require both spouses' participation. In the case of a gift, the donor alone makes that election; in the case of a testamentary transfer, the executor of the QTIP trust has that responsibility. In both cases, it is the transferor alone who determines the final recipient of the property, and in both instances it is a transfer to a nonspouse.