Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/317/95/case.php
Timestamp: 2018-01-18 23:23:05
Document Index: 453216903

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 124', '§ 800', '§ 207', '§ 208', '§ 826', '§ 812', '§ 826', '§ 811', '§ 826', '§ 811']

The question for decision is whether § 124 of the New York Decedent Estate Law, [Footnote 1] which provides in effect that, except as otherwise directed by the decedent's will, the burden of any federal death taxes paid by the executor or administrator shall be spread proportionately among the distributees or beneficiaries of the estate, is unconstitutional because in conflict with the federal estate tax law, Internal Revenue Code, § 800 et seq. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We are of opinion that Congress intended that the federal estate tax should be paid out of the estate as a whole, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In the Act of 1916, Congress turned from the previous century's inheritance tax upon the receipt of property by survivors (see Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U. S. 41; Scholey v. Rew, 23 Wall. 331) to an estate tax upon the transmission of a statutory "net estate" by a decedent. That act directed payment by the executor in the first instance, § 207, but provided also for payment in the event that he failed to pay, § 208. It did not undertake in any manner to specify who was to bear the burden of the tax. Its legislative history indicates clearly that Congress did not contemplate that the Government would be interested in the distribution of the estate after the tax was paid, and that Congress intended that state law should determine the ultimate thrust of the tax. [Footnote 4] That Congress, from chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
1916 onward, has understood local law as governing the distribution of the estate after payment of the tax (with the limited exceptions created by § 826(c) and (d) of the Internal Revenue Code, to be discussed presently) is confirmed by § 812(d) of the Code, dealing with charitable deductions, which recognizes that estate taxes may be payable in whole or in part out of certain bequests, etc. "by the law of the jurisdiction under which the estate is administered." [Footnote 5] The administrative interpretation has been in accord, [Footnote 6] and that has been the understanding of the federal courts [Footnote 7] and of some state courts. [Footnote 8] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
By that section, Congress intended to protect a distributee against bearing a greater burden of the tax than he would have sustained had the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Respondents also rely on § 826(c), [Footnote 10] authorizing the executor to collect the proportionate share of the tax from the beneficiary of life insurance includable in the gross estate by reason of § 811(g), and § 826(d), [Footnote 11] authorizing similar action against a person receiving property subject to a power which is taxable under § 811(f), as forbidding further apportionment by force of state law against other chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Edwards v. Slocum, 287 F.6d 1, 653, aff'd, 264 U. S. 264 U.S. 61, 264 U. S. 63; YMCA v. Davis, 264 U. S. 47, 264 U. S. 51; New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U. S. 345, 256 U. S. 349; Hepburn v. Winthrop, 65 App.D.C. 309, 83 F.2d 566, 572.