Case ID: us-ct-cl_47/html/0639-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Holmes", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE FIDELITY TRUST CO., EXECUTOR OF WALTER H. TILDEN, DECEASED.
    [45 C. Cls. R., 362; 222 U. S. R., 158.]
    
      On the defendants’ Appeal.
    
    In March, 1898, a testator bequeathes his personal x>roperty to the claimant in trust. The will provides that M. TV. S. shall en;joy during her natural life the income from this estate. Then comes the Spanish war revenue law, act 30th June, 1898, imposing a tax on “ legacies or distributive shares arising from personal property." The tax is assessed and collected on the income computed up to July, 1902, exactly as if the interest of M. TV. S. in the estate consisted of an absolute cash bequest payable immediately to her, the value of which interest was calculated by annuity tables based upon the expectation of life of said M. W. S. The suit is to recover back the money so paid, less the sum actually received by M. TV. S., as income upon the estate so bequeathed prior to July, 1902, under and by virtue of the act 27th June, 1902.
    The court below decides:
    1. The Spanish war revenue statute, Act IStli June, 1898 (30 Stat. L., p. 460, sec. 29), did not impose duties upon legacies which were vested merely within the technical meaning of that term, but only upon legacies which were vested in actual possession and enjoyment
    II. By the terms of the Spanish war revenue statute and its amendments the turning over of a legacy by a trustee to the beneficiary and the payment of the tax imposed were intended to be contemporaneous. The statutes examined and construed.
    
      HI. It is well settled that under the Act 27th Juno, 1902 (32 Stat. L., p. 506, sec. 3), the taxes to be refunded are those which have been collected on “ contingent 'beneficial interests not absolutely vested in possession or enjoyment.”
    
    IV. The jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Treasury under said act is not exclusive.
   The decision of the court below is reversed on the ground that a legacy to pay over net income to the legatee in periodical payments during the legatee’s life on which the legatee has received several payments of income is not a contingent beneficial irgterest, but a vested life estate.

Mr. Justice Holmes

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court December 4, 1911.