Court Opinion

ID: 9761001
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:28:07.678759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:19.570385
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Cohen:
The appellee in his brief concedes, as he must, that there is an economic difference to the legatee between an ordinary legacy and a tax free legacy. He says, “There can be no argument about this fact — obviously it is better to be left a tax free legacy. But the Act does not say that this economic difference is something which is to be taxed.” This is my point of departure. I think the only construction that can consistently be placed on the forty-five or more amendments to the Transfer Inheritance Tax Act is that “the clear value of the property . . . passing to or for the use of” the legatee can be measured only by the economic value. The legislature undoubtedly used clear value synonymously with economic value. The clear and expressed intent of the legislature was to place a transfer tax *380upon the decedent’s property passing to or for the use of the legatee and imposes the tax liability upon the legatee. When the decedent’s property is transferred to the state for the credit of the legatee’s tax liability, I cannot see how this is not property' transferred for the use of the legatee and hence taxable.
A similar construction has been placed on every like situation that has arisen in regard to federal taxes. The fact that the Commonwealth has not adopted this practice for the past thirty-eight years provides no excuse for our failure to apply the proper application of the law and mathematics now. It only generates embarrassment to the writer that he did not apply the proper law when he had an opportunity so to do.