Court Opinion

ID: 9638472
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:44:35.396254+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:34.994160
License: Public Domain

HEALY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The construction given by the Board of Tax Appeals to § 11265 of the Washington code was based on the assumed authority of State v. Snohomish County, 71 Wash. 320, 128 P. 667. However, the state court there held only that real property in private ownership on March 1, but in public ownership when the taxes for the year are levied, cannot be subjected to the payment of taxes for that year. The Snohomish County Case is not properly to be taken as authority for the view that the Hen of a tax, under the state law, becomes effective only upon the making of a levy.
It is clear, as the majority opinion here assumes, that the date of tax incidence in Washington is March 1, when the Hen therefor attaches. Respondents’ predecessor in title died on April 5 of the year in question, and the title vested in one of the respondents as devisee on that date. As respondents did not own the land on the date the lien of the tax attached they were not entitled to deduct the amount of the tax in reporting their income. Merchants Bank Bldg. Co. v. Helvering, 8 Cir., 84 F.2d 478; Walsh-McGuire Co. v. Commissioner, 6 Cir., 97 F.2d 983.
The majority holding is that respondent, Mrs. Plestcheeff, was a “grantee” within the meaning of the state statute postponing the Hen of the tax, as between a grantor and grantee, until the first Monday in February of the succeeding year, hence, as to her, the lien attached after she became owner. I think there is no basis for such conclusion. A “grant”, in its accept*65ed meaning, does not include a devise. It is true that the word “grant” has sometimes been given a broad definition, as, for example, in Nicholas & Co. v. United States, 249 U.S. 34, 39 S.Ct. 218, 63 L.Ed. 461; and the observations there made with respect to the scope of the term have been incorporated in the definitions found in some of the law dictionaries. The court, however, was there dealing with the word only as it was used in a tariff act.
Despite broad definitions, the term “grant”, as used in the law of real property, has never, so far as I have been able to ascertain, been held to include a devise. And none of the definitions given to the word have gone so far as to say that . a devise is so included. We are not helped any by the fact that the word has been broadly defined unless the extensions of its meaning reach the situation with which we are here compelled to deal.
The words “convey” and “grant” have been said by the Washington court to be synonymous, Blood v. Sielert, 38 Wash. 643, 80 P. 799; and see Des Moines County Agricultural Society v. Tubbesing, 87 Iowa 138, 54 N.W. 68; Hammond v. Oregon & C. R. Co., 117 Or. 244, 243 P. 767. But the word “convey” is not appropriate in describing a transfer effected by will or descent. “The word [convey] is properly used as intending the passing of title by conveyances, technically so called, and not by wills, which are only quasi-conveyances, and are not properly described by the term ‘conveyance’.” 13 C.J. 896
The real inquiry, however, is not one of definition but of the sense in which the words “grantor” and “grantee” were intended to be used in the statute before us. The proviso contained in the Washington law is not uncommon. Analogous provisions are found in the statutes of a number of the states. Gault v. Hurd, 103 Kan. 51, 172 P. 1011; Carey v. Foster, 7 Wyo. 216, 51 P. 206; Hughes v. McCreary, Ky., 86 S.W. 522. Their general purpose is to fix the respective obligations of vendor and vendee, as between themselves, in respect of the payment of current taxes, or to make what the legislature considered to be a fair adjustment of the burden, when the parties themselves have made no agreement as to the matter. Carstens v. J. B. Powles & Co., 114 Wash. 588, 195 P. 1017; 66 C.J. 1045.
The devisor-devisee relationship does not arise out of contract, or in consequence of a sale, and provisions of the sort in question have no purpose as applied to that relationship. The genesis of the Washington holdings, which are said in the majority opinion to justify the construction here given the statute, is an earlier holding of the state court to the effect that a transfer effected by condemnation is tantamount to a sale of the property. American Creameries Co. v. Armour & Co., 149 Wash. 690, 271 P. 896; Bethany Presbyterian Church v. Seattle, 154 Wash. 529, 282 P. 922. The state court simply applied the statute to what it had held to be essentially a vendorvendee relationship, hence one within the legislative purpose. These cases afford no basis for the novel scope ascribed to the statute here.
The order of the Board should be reversed.