Hewlings v. State

California Supreme Court Mar 13, 1908 No. S.F. No. 4596.Published

Before: Shaw

AI Brief

AI-generated · verify before citing

Holding. The state's right to a succession tax vests immediately upon the death of the testator, and the subsequent repeal and re-enactment of the tax law does not extinguish the state's right to collect taxes that accrued prior to the repeal. The re-enactment of collection provisions in the new statute operates as a continuation of the prior law, maintaining the state's authority to collect such taxes.

Issues

Whether the repeal of the inheritance tax law of 1893 by the act of 1905 extinguished the state's right to collect succession taxes that accrued before the repeal took effect.
Whether the executor and the court had authority to enforce the collection of succession taxes after the enactment of the 1905 statute.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“the re-enactment of the provisions of the former law respecting the payment and collection of succession taxes is to be considered as having been done with knowledge of the existence of these uncollected taxes”

“the new act should be construed as a continuation of the old with the modification contained in the new act.”

Synopsis

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Santa Clara County directing payment of a collateral inheritance, tax. M. H. Hyland, Judge.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

SHAW, J.

Elizabeth Hewlett Martin, a resident of this: state, died in the county of Santa Clara on January 2, 1905, leaving a valuable estate. By the terms of her will, which was-duly probated, she bequeathed to each of the appellants a sum of money greater than five hundred dollars, amounting-in the aggregate to $38,415.21. None of the appellants was related to the deceased in a degree nearer than that of brother, and, hence, the legacy came within the terms of the act of 1903 (Stats. 1903, p. 268), amending section 1 of the act imposing a tax on inheritance devises and legacies. Section 27 of an act approved March 20, 1905, which took effect July 1, 1905 (Stats. 1905, p. 350), purports to repeal, unconditionally, the act of 1893 providing for a succession tax and all the subsequent amendments thereto, including that of 1903 above mentioned. In due course of administration of the-estate a decree of distribution thereof was rendered by the-superior court of Santa Clara County on February 2, 1906, declaring that the appellants respectively were the owners of and entitled to receive the legacies bequeathed to them as. aforesaid, subject to whatever inheritance tax might be due-thereon. Subsequently, on March 2, 1906, upon due notice,, the court made an order directing the executor

the estate to deduct from each of said legacies a sum equal to five percent thereof, as and for a succession tax thereon, and to pay-said sums so deducted to the county treasurer. This appeal is taken from that order.

The appellants ask us to overrule the decisions of this court in the

Estate of Stanford,

126 Cal. 112, [54 Pac. 259, 58 Pac. 462], and

Trippet

State,

149 Cal. 521, [86 Pac. 1084], and declare that the repeal of the Collateral Inheritance Tax:

[227]

Law of 1893, and its amendments, by the act of 1905, operated to deprive the state of the right to collect or receive all succession taxes, accrued under the former law, which had not been paid or ordered to be paid to the state at the time the repeal took effect, on July 1, 1905. The briefs filed for the appellants in

Hewlings v. State

AI Brief

Synopsis

SHAW, J.

More from California Supreme Court

Related research

AI Brief