Case ID: mills-surr_2/html/0440-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Thoüvias, S.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Matter of the Transfer Tax on the Estate of Annie Taylor Morgan, Deceased.
    
      (Surrogate’s Court, New York County,
    
    
      Filed January, 1902.)
    Transfer Tax — Deduction or Debts when Precluded by Failure to Appeal prom the Order Fixing the Tax — Jurisdiction or the Surrogate.
    Where, at a transfer tax appraisal, alleged deductible debts of a decedent have not been urged before the appraiser nor reserved for future action, as they may be in a proper case, and the time for an appeal from the order fixing the tax has expired, the surrogate is without jurisdiction to grant any relief in regard to said debts.
    
      Proceedings upon the report of an appraiser appointed to assess the transfer tax.
    Charles-Fox, for- petitioner; Edward H. Fallows, for comptroller.
   Thoüvias, S.

— The order fixing the tax was an adjudication, binding on the parties and on the State as to all matters litigated before the appraiser and passed upon by him. The appraiser had the claim of Alexander C. Morgan against the decedent’s estate brought to his attention, but he did not pass upon it for the reason that it was then in litigation, and this fact appears upon the face of his report. The question as to the propriety of a deduction for this claim has, therefore, not yet been determined. The matter will be sent back to the appraiser to take evidence and report what, if any, rebate or deduction from the tax imposed should be made because of this claim. The other claims for which deductions are asked do not appear to have been urged before the appraiser, and no general reservation on the subject of claims was made by him. Such reservation would have been proper under Matter of Westurn, 152 N. Y. 93, 100, and in the absence of it the only remedy under the statute for an omission to give proper credit for debts is by appeal. The time to appeal from the order has long since expired, and I am without jurisdiction to grant the relief asked for as to those claims. Matter of Crerar, 56 App. Div. 481. The order denying this part of the application will state that such denial is upon the ground of want of jurisdiction.

Decreed accordingly.