Case ID: misc_39/html/0771-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Petty, S.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Matter of the Appraisal for Taxation of the Estate of Clarissa Conklin, Deceased.
    (Surrogate’s Court, Suffolk County,
    February, 1903.)
    Transfer tax — Estate less than $10,000.
    An estate less than $10,000 In value is subject to the transfer tax, as fixed by the Tax Law of 1896, only when that part of it passing to persons not specifically exempted by statute equals or exceeds. $500 in value.
    Appeal from decree exempting estate from transfer tax.
    Rathan L. Miller, State Comptroller, in pro. per., appellant.
    William B. Codling, for executor respondent.
   Petty, S.

It is conceded on this appeal that the amount of the estate is $2,026.64, of which $1,776.64 passes to sisters, and $250 to a grand niece, a cousin, and a third legatee unrelated. That the last-mentioned sum is taxable at 5 per cent is the claim ■of the State on the ground that its taxability is controlled by the Tact that the estate is over $500 in value.

It is true that the amount of the estate must be first determined, for if less than $500 no tax attaches, no matter to whom it is given.

The statute in force at the death of the testatrix (Laws of 1896, •chap. 908) provides that a tax shall be imposed when the transfer is of property of the value of $500' or over. § 220. It is further provided that a transfer to a sister is entirely exempt when ■it is of property valued at less than $10,000. § 221. And finally, it is provided that the word “ property ” shall mean the property of the decedent “ transferred to those not herein specifically exempted from the provisions of this article.” § 242.

The sum of this law is, therefore, that, given an estate of less than $10,000 value, it is taxable only when that part of it passing to persons not specifically exempted equals or exceeds $5Q0 in value. In the case at issue the amount passing to the sisters is specifically exempted, the estate being less than $10,000, and the amount passing to those not specifically exempted is less than $500 and likewise not taxable. Matter of Bliss, 6 App. Div. 192; Estate of Taylor, 6 Misc. Rep. 277; Matter of Flynn’s Estate, 30 N. Y. Supp. 388.

It is urged that the Bliss case, supra, is reversed by Matter of Corbett, 171 N. Y. 516, but I do not so read it. The facts in the Corbett case are entirely different, the estate being over $10,000 and no one being specifically exempted. By no possible construction can that case be made to hold that bishops and religious corporations are the only specific exemptions in the act. The section of the act exempting them, and, in certain cases, sisters is_entitled “ exceptions and limitations” and the conclusion reached in both the Bliss and the Corbett case is but a strict following of the statute itself.

Appeal dismissed, without costs.