Case ID: us-ct-cl_55/html/0517-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Clarke", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JOHN W. SIMPSON, SURVIVING EXECUTOR OF JOHN G. MOORE, DECEASED, v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [Not reported in C. Cls. R.; 252 U. S., 547.]
    Judgment ivas rendered in favor of plaintiff, for a portion of the amount claimed, in the court below. On appeal by plaintiff the judgment was affirmed, and the Supreme Court decided:
    In computing succession taxes payable under the war-revenue act of 1898 upon legacies of the net income for life from funds placed with trustees for investment and reinvestment, it was lawful for the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to assess the legacies by means of general tables based on approved mortuary tables and on 4 per cent as the assumed value of money. 30 Stat.; 448, sees. 29, 30; Rev. Stats., secs. 321, 3182.
    The court takes judicial notice that, at the time when the taxes involved in this case were collected, 4 per cent was very generally assumed to be the fair value of money safely invested.
    Where a will directed conversion of residuary estate into money and its payment by the executors to a trustee of their selection, in trust for certain legatees, and where the trustee had been selected and the payments largely made, and there remained funds of the estate, clearly exceeding the requirements of pending claims, the payment of which to the trustee had become a duty of the executors enforceable by the legatees under the state law, held, that the interests of the legatees in such funds were vested, within the meaning of the refunding act of June 27, 1902, sec. 3, 32 Stat., 406. New York Oode of Civil Procedure, 1899, secs. 2718, 2721, and 2722, considered.
    Proof that a suit by stockholders to obtain an accounting for promotion profits was pending against a firm of which a testator was a member, without showing the pleadings, the issues or character of the suit, the amount or merit of the claim, or the result of the litigation, held, insufficient to establish that legacies in funds in the hands of his executors were not vested, within the meaning of the refunding act of June 27, 1902, supra.
    
   Mr. Justice Clarke

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court April 19,1920.