Not sure about the spouses timing of the declaration of death. It may have something to do with the fact that there is a really good chance that a democrat will be elected. This would probably cause a rollback on the tax cuts - including estate tax cuts. If the new president gets elected and repeals the tax cuts and restores the 55% estate tax with the $600k exemption it would probably be financially safer to declare him dead in 2008 and pay estate taxes under existing rules. Just my opinion on the timing of this.