Estate of Lander

Deceased died intestate in the county of Plumas on June 19, 1904, leaving him surviving two sisters, who were his sole heirs. On July 21, 1905, the administrator of his estate filed in the superior court of said county his final account and petition for distribution of said estate. On July 31, 1905, and prior to the hearing of said matter, the district attorney was notified by the county treasurer that the tax on collateral inheritance due from said estate had not *Page 745 been paid, and on the same day the district attorney filed in said matter and presented to the court his protest against the settlement of said account and the distribution of said estate until said tax was paid. No steps prior to said last-named date had been taken to collect said tax, and no part thereof had been paid. The court made its order settling the account and directing distribution of the whole estate without the payment of said tax.

The appeal is from the order settling the final account and also from the decree of distribution. The lower court held "that the act of March 23, 1893 (Stats. 1893, p. 193), and the several acts amendatory thereof, had been repealed, and there was no inheritance tax due or payable, and that there was no inheritance tax law in force by which any inheritance tax could be collected in said estate or ordered paid by the court."

It would seem that the trial court held that the act of March 20, 1905, Stats. 1905, page 341 (which will be referred to as the repealing act), repealed the act of 1893 and destroyed the remedies provided in the latter act for the collection of taxes falling due thereunder prior to such repeal, applying the rule laid down in Napa State Hospital v. Flaherty, 134 Cal. 315, [66 P. 322].

There is no brief filed, by respondent, and we are without any assistance from him.

The facts here are substantially the same as in the recent case of Trippet v. State of California, 149 Cal. 521, [86 P. 1084], i. e., the deceased died before the act of 1905 went into effect and no steps had been taken by the state to collect the tax imposed by the law in force at the date of the death. It was held in the Trippet case, supra, affirming the doctrine laid down in Estate of Stanford, 126 Cal. 112, [54 P. 259, 58 P. 462], "that the right of the state to the tax under the law of 1893 is, immediately upon the death of the decedent, a vested right which cannot be surrendered by legislative act." The Trippet case was an action to have determined that the property belonging to the estate of the decedent was not subject to any lien for taxes under the act of 1893, and acts amendatory thereof, imposing a tax on collateral inheritances. Such an action was authorized by the repealing act of March 20, 1905. In the Stanford case it was held that to give retroactive effect to the amendatory act of 1897 (Stats. 1897, p. 77) *Page 746 would be in substance, if not in form, to turn over the fund in question belonging to the state to the appellants, and would be to make a gift or donation of the same which would conflict with the provisions of the constitution prohibiting the legislature from making any gift or donation of any public money or thing of value.