Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/285/165.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 01:26:09+00:00

Document:
Mr. O. Walker Taylor, of Boston, Mass., for petitioner.
Mr. Charles B. Rugg, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
William E. Walker of Taunton, Mass., died testate November 9, 1918. Petitioner, as executor of the [285 U.S. 165, 166] estate, paid the taxes imposed by the state in respect to the property which passed from the decedent. He also paid to respondent the federal estate taxes prescribed by the Revenue Act 1916, 39 Stat. 756, 778, which the Commissiner reckoned without deducting from the gross estate the taxes exacted by the state. The Circuit Court of Appeals denied his right to recover the alleged overpayment-the difference between the sum demanded and what would have been due if the claimed deduction had been allowed. 50 F.(2d) 787. The District Court had held otherwise. 42 F.(2d) 918.
Here the insistence is that to ascertain the net estate under section 203, Revenue Act September 8, 1916, it was necessary to deduct from the gross estate the tax paid to Massachusetts as required by chapter 65 of her General Laws. Also, that in the circumstances the Circuit Court of Appeals should not have decided this question of law.
The Revenue Act of 1916 (amended as to rates March 3, 1917, 39 Stat. 1000, 1002, and October 3, 1917, 40 Stat. 300, 324) imposed a graduated tax upon the transfer of the net estate, ascertained as directed by section 203, of every person dying thereafter.
'Section 6. Administrators, executors and trustees, grantees or donees under conveyances or gifts made during the life of the grantor or donor, and persons to whom beneficial interests shall accrue by survivorship, shall be liable for the taxes imposed by this chapter, with interest, until the same have been paid.
Manifestly, the state taxes paid by the executor were not permissible deductions, unless they were such 'charges against the estate, as are allowed by the laws of the juris [285 U.S. 165, 169] diction, ... under which the estate is being administered.' Charges against an estate are only such as affect it as a whole. They do not include taxes on the rights of individual beneficiaries. New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U.S. 345, 350 , 41 S. Ct. 506, 16 A. L. R. 660.
The Massachusetts statute by plain words places the real burden of the tax upon the legatee or other person who receives a decedent's property. Payments required of an executor are only preliminary; ultimately they must be met by the beneficiaries.
Decisions of the Massachusetts Supreme Court show with adequate certainty that the right of succession is the real object of the charge laid because of property which passes by will or under the laws relative to intestacy. The thing burdened is the right to receive. Attorney General v. Stone, 209 Mass. 186, 190, 95 N. E. 395; Magee v. Commissioner, 256 Mass. 512, 153 N. E. 1; Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Commissioner, 267 Mass. 240, 166 N. E. 729; Coolidge v. Commissioner, 268 Mass. 443, 447, 167 N. E. 757. See Saltonstall v. Saltonstall, 276 U.S. 260 , 48 S. Ct. 225.
It is unnecessary for us to consider whether the petitioner filed a proper claim for refund within the period prescribed by the statute.

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