Court Opinion

ID: 9686077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:25:37.618496+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:14.360843
License: Public Domain

Caporale, J.,
concurring.
While I agree with the judgment of the majority, I write separately to again record my objection to elevating statements made during the course of enacting legislation to the status of meaningful legislative history useful in determining the intent of the entire body of legislators. I will not burden this concurrence with the reasons for the objection, as they are set forth in Goolsby v. Anderson, 250 Neb. 306, 549 N.W.2d 153 (1996) (Caporale, J., concurring, joined by Fahmbruch and Lanphier, JJ.); Southern Neb. Rural P.P. Dist. v. Nebraska Electric, 249 Neb. 913, 546 N.W.2d 315 (1996) (Caporale, J., concurring, joined by Lanphier, J.); and Omaha Pub. Power Dist. v. Nebraska Dept. of Revenue, 248 Neb. 518, 537 N.W.2d 312 (1995) (Caporale, J., concurring, joined by Fahmbruch and Lanphier, JJ.).
I do observe, however, that the situation here is even more egregious than past references to such statements, for in this *421instance the majority has resorted to relying not on the statement of a member of the Legislature, but on the statement of a member of a professional association, specifically the Nebraska State Bar Association. If such is to be the rule, will anyone who has addressed the Legislature be deemed to have been speaking for that duly elected body?
In any event, it is this court’s duty to discover, if possible, the Legislature’s intent from the language of the statute itself. Brown v. Wilson, 252 Neb. 782, 567 N.W.2d 124 (1997); In re Interest of Jeffrey R., 251 Neb. 250, 557 N.W.2d 220 (1996). In this instance, it is not necessary to reiterate what constitutes proper legislative history when confronted with a statutory ambiguity. Without recourse to any outside sources, a short and simple analysis of the words the Legislature used in the statutory scheme it enacted unambiguously demonstrates that there is no inheritance tax due on the value of the interest which passed under the terms of the will of the deceased husband, Leo E. Nelson, to the deceased wife, Ameda L. Nelson, notwithstanding that she held a general power of appointment over it.
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 77-2008.03 (Reissue 1996) provides that any power of appointment, be it general or limited, “shall be deemed a transfer of the interest in the property which is subject to such power ... at the date of the donor’s death . . . .” Section 77-2008.03 further makes evident that with general powers of appointment, the interest transfers to the donee. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 77-2008.04 (Reissue 1996) supplements those provisions by stipulating that the “exercise or failure to exercise any power of appointment by the donee thereof, shall not be deemed a transfer which is subject to” inheritance tax. Thus, as a general matter, an inheritance tax on property which is subject to a power of appointment is assessed as of the date of the donor’s death rather than the donee’s death. However, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 77-2004 (Reissue 1996) provides that “[interests passing to the surviving spouse by will . . . shall not be subject to tax.”
Here, the husband’s will created a general power of appointment. When he died, the transfer of the power of appointment to the wife constituted a transfer of the interest in the property to the wife. See § 77-2008.03. As the interest passed to the wife *422was through her husband’s will, the transfer was not taxable, see § 77-2004, and is unaffected by the wife’s failure to exercise her general power of appointment, as such a failure transfers no interest subject to inheritance tax, see § 77-2008.04.
That being so, the majority correctly reversed the judgment of the county court.
White, C.J., joins in this concurrence.