Court Opinion

ID: 9651390
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:18:22.748563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:33.452653
License: Public Domain

MANDERINO, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. The trial court, after reviewing all of the evidence, found that there was no intent on the part of the survivors to turn all or any part of said monies over to the decedents but that they only intended to establish convenience accounts to facilitate in the payment of bills. Moreover, the appellant conceded both at trial and at oral argument before this Court that these were, in fact, convenience accounts. Nonetheless, the majority blindly refuses to look beyond the four corners of the signature cards to ascertain the true intent of the parties.
While I agree with Mr. Justice Roberts that “the clear implication of the orphans’ court’s findings, is that the decedents owned no interests in the accounts as against the survivors,” I disagree that “this conclusion does not affect the incidence of taxation.” Section 241 of the Act of June 15, 1961, P.L. 373, 72 P.S. § 2485-241 (1964) defines a transfer subject to tax as the accrual of the right to the immediate ownership or possession and enjoyment of the whole property upon the death of one of the joint tenants. Since the survivors in the present cases never intended to transfer any ownership interests or rights to the decedents, they could not, upon the deaths of the decedents, have accrued a right which they had always possessed. Thus, there were no transfers in these cases upon which tax could properly be imposed.
NIX, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.