Court Opinion

ID: 9641700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:38:23.650666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:39.200687
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Pomeeoy:
With all respect to the majority, I am obliged to dissent.
I cannot quarrel with the conclusion that the transaction between Mrs. Meluskey and her son possessed all the indicia of a valid inter vivos gift to the extent that the value of the property transferred exceeded the value of the annuity received. I am puzzled, however, by the importance which the majority attaches to this fact, since, as the majority recognizes, the scope of §221 (a) is broad enough to encompass inter vivos gifts. That section subjects to tax “all transfers of property specified in sections 222-226, which are made during his lifetime by a resident or a nonresident, to the extent that they are made without valuable and adequate consideration in money or money’s worth at the time of the transfer . . . .” Section 225, under which the Commonwealth seeks to assess a tax in the present case, provides that “a transfer conforming to section 221(a) *595and under which, the transferee promises to make payment to, or for the benefit of, the transferor . . . during the remainder of the transferor’s life is subject to tax under this act”.1 I should think that donative intent and delivery, the earmarks of a valid inter vivos gift, would be present in any transaction of the sort described in §225, whether or not labeled as a gift by the parties, so long as they were aware of a disparity in value between the property transferred and the consideration received.2 There is certainly nothing to suggest that §225 was intended to apply only where the parties were laboring under a mistaken impression as to the value of the property in question.
The basic question in this case is one to which the majority gives short shrift: whether or not the transaction in question involved more than one “transfer of property” within the meaning of §221 and §225. Mrs. Meluskey conveyed her property to a sole grantee by *596means of a single deed. The characterization of the excess value of the property as a “gift” in the annuity agreement between the parties cannot obscure the unitary nature of this transaction. I am compelled to conclude that there was but a single transfer of property within the meaning of §221 and §225. “To hold otherwise would be to sacrifice substance for form and condone an obvious attempt to evade payment of the [tax imposed under §§221 and 225].” Jones Estate, 350 Pa. 120, 125, 38 A. 2d 30 (1944).

 It is not necessary that the transfer be intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment at or after the death of the transferor in order for the transfer to be subject to tax under this section. Compare the Act of June 20, 1919, P. L. 521, art. I, §1, as amended, 72 P.S. §2301 (c), repealed 1961, June 15, P. D. 373, art. XII, §1201, effective January 1, 1962.

 The majority suggests that “the difference between the market value of the real estate transferred and the consideration in the form of the annuity would have been properly taxable under section 225 ... in the absence of . . . evidence sufficient to establish donative intent”. Supra at 594. In the case of transfers from parent to child, we have consistently permitted an inference of donative intent from the bare facts of voluntary delivery to and retention by the transferee. Brightbill v. Boeshore, 385 Pa. 69, 122 A. 2d 38 (1956); Chapple's Estate, 332 Pa. 168, 2 A. 2d 719 (1938); Northern Trust Co. v. Huber, 274 Pa. 329, 118 A. 217 (1922); Yeager’s Estate, 273 Pa. 359, 117 A. 67 (1922). This evidence of donative intent would be present in the ease at bar no matter how the parties chose to describe their transaction, as indeed it would be present in any case where the parties were aware of a disparity in the value of the property exchanged.