Court Opinion

ID: 9651389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:18:22.745269+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:33.451551
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(concurring).
I agree that section 241 of the Inheritance and Estate Tax Act of 1961,* as interpreted by Olson Estate, 447 Pa. *462483, 291 A.2d 95 (1972), requires the reversal of the decrees in these cases. Whatever may have been the effect as between the parties of proof of the absence of donative intent, it is clear that, as against the Commonwealth for inheritance tax purposes, section 241 makes the form in which the property is held determinative. See Olson Estate, supra, at 485 n. 4, 291 A.2d at 96 n. 4 ("liability for the Inheritance Tax [is not] to be resolved by the legal principles governing ownership of joint tenancy interests”).
However, I am disturbed at the wide divergence of form and substance in these cases. The orphans’ court found in both cases that the survivors did not intend to transfer any ownership interests to the decedents, but sought merely to empower the decedents to deal with the accounts for the benefit and convenience of the survivors. Since transfers made without donative intent are not completed gifts effective to transfer any interests in property, the clear implication of the orphans’ court’s findings is that the decedents owned no interests in the accounts as against the survivors. While this conclusion does not affect the incidence of taxation, it does raise a question why the transactions assumed forms that were so divergent from the parties’ intentions.
I suspect that responsibility lies with the bank. Here the parties knew precisely what they wanted — to empower the decedents to transact business for the convenience of the survivors. Because people ordinarily do not consult attorneys when they open savings accounts, the only source of advice on how to structure their transactions is the bank or savings institution. The reason why the form the transactions took did not coincide with the definite intentions of the parties would seem to be that advice.
Mr. Justice Pomeroy perceptively observes that the survivors could easily have executed powers of attorney in favor of the decedents rather than printed signature *463cards for joint accounts. I doubt whether they knew that this option was open to them. The likely source of that information would have been the bank. Apparently they were not so informed. In that the taxpayers have a legitimate complaint. There is no occasion in this case to consider whether they have any legal remedy.

 Act of June 15, 1961, P.L. 373, § 241, 72 P.S. § 2485-241 (1964).