Court Opinion

ID: 9533066
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:27:58.870022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:54.373285
License: Public Domain

Hill, J.
(dissenting) — I dissent. The trial court has correctly interpreted the letter and the spirit of our inheritance tax law.
The statute with which we are concerned imposes a tax upon
“All property within the jurisdiction of this state, and any interest therein, . . . which shall pass
“(1) by will or by the statutes of inheritance of this or any other state ...” RCW 83.04.010 (Italics mine.)
*368It makes clear that it is an inheritance tax (83.08.010), and in RCW 83.08.020 it states that it is imposed on
“Any devise, bequest, legacy, gift or beneficial interest to any property or income therefrom which shall pass to . . ., ” the son of the decedent. (Italics mine.)
We have but recently been at some pains to explain the difference between an inheritance tax or a tax on succession, and an estate tax. The late Judge Harry Ellsworth Foster made the distinction clear in In re Birkeland’s Estate (1960), 56 Wn. (2d) 441, 443, 444, 353 P. (2d) 667, when he said:
“This state has an inheritance tax as opposed to an estate tax such as prevails in the Federal system and New York. Our tax is an excise, laid upon the privilege of receiving property by inheritance. In re Plasterer’s Estate, 49 Wn. (2d) 339, 301 P. (2d) 539. The tax is borne by the successor. In re Ferguson’s Estate, 113 Wash. 598, 194 Pac. 771, 13 A. L. R. 122; In re Corbin’s Estate, 107 Wash. 424, 181 Pac. 910, 7 A. L. R. 685; In re Lotzgesell’s Estate, 62 Wash. 352, 113 Pac. 1105. By RCW 83.52.010, the personal representative of the estate is responsible for payment of the tax and payment is a prerequisite to a decree of distribution. Consequently, the valuation of the property for tax computation must precede distribution. But, nevertheless, essentially the tax comes from the legatee’s pocket. It is not the decedent’s estate that is taxed, but those who succeed to it. The tax is computed with reference to the value of the inherited property, but this is not a tax on the property itself. The value of the property is the measure, but the incidence of tax is the transfer laid on the person who receives it for his privilege to do so. In re Lloyd’s Estate, 53 Wn. (2d) 196, 332 P. (2d) 44; Seattle-First Nat. Bank v. Macomber, 32 Wn. (2d) 696, 203 P. (2d) 1078.
“On the other hand, the federal estate tax and state taxes modeled thereon are different. Chief Justice Taft explained for the United States supreme court in Y.M.C.A. v. Davis, 264 U. S. 47, 68 L. Ed. 558, 44 S. Ct. 291, as follows:
“ ‘. . . It was not a tax upon succession and receipt of benefits under the law or the will. It was death duties as distinguished from a legacy or succession tax. What this law taxes is not the interest to which the legatees and de-visees succeeded on death, but the interest which ceased by reason of the death.’
*369“Such a tax is on the estate itself, and it is the value of the property to the estate that is the basis for valuation.
“Here, where the tax is upon the privilege of succession, the tax is upon the legatee, and it is the property’s value to him that is the basis for valuation.”
To hold that Lawrence A. Carlson should pay a tax upon the privilege of succession to $8,995.31, the estate tax collected by the United States and which he could not receive, is neither within the spirit or letter of the inheritance tax law. I would affirm the trial court.
Ott, C. J., and Rosellini, J., concur with Hill, J.