1 Conn. App. 22 | Conn. App. Ct. | 1983
This case is before this court by reservation.1 The parties have stipulated to the following facts: Elizabeth A. Day died April 8, 1979, a resident of West Hartford. Her will dated April 29, 1964, was probated on April 30, 1979. The plaintiff Board of Trustees of Trinity-St. Stephen's Church, The United Church of Canada, Amherst, Nova Scotia, received a legacy under article four of the will and one-half the residue of the estate under article ten of the will. Trinity-St. Stephen's Church is a church organized and existing under the laws of Nova Scotia. The plaintiff town of Amherst, Nova Scotia, for Highland View Hospital, received a legacy under article five of the will and one-half of the residue under article ten of the will. The town of Amherst, Nova Scotia, is a municipality organized and existing under the laws of Nova Scotia. Highland View Hospital is a public institution located in Amherst.
The plaintiff Edward H. Kenyon is executor under the will. On December 19, 1979, he filed a Connecticut succession tax return, claiming that the legacies to the Board of Trustees of Trinity-St. Stephen's Church and to the town of Amherst for Highland View Hospital were exempt from the Connecticut succession tax under
On March 19, 1980, the Connecticut commissioner of revenue services determined that these transfers were taxable and assessed a succession tax of $29,704.66, plus interest from January 8, 1980, at the *24 rate of 12 percent. Transfers by decedents in Nova Scotia to transferees in Connecticut similar to those in the present case are not subject to death taxes under the laws of Nova Scotia.
The executor appealed the tax commissioner's ruling to the Probate Court, claiming that the transfers were exempt. The Probate Court found that the subject transfers were taxable under General Statutes
The question set out by the Superior Court is: Does
The plaintiffs claim that the transfer to the town of Amherst, Nova Scotia, for Highland View Hospital is exempt under
The present case involves solely the interpretation of
The first inheritance tax law to exempt charities from the tax was passed in Connecticut in 1889. It exempted bequests to any charitable purposes or to any purpose strictly public within the state of Connecticut. Public Acts 1889, c. 180, 1. In 1911, the legislature exempted from the succession tax bequests for the benefit of any corporation or institution located in Connecticut which received state aid by appropriations provided for by the General Statutes. Public Acts 1911, c. 148. In 1921, *26 charitable exemptions were broadened by exempting charitable bequests to foreign countries on a reciprocal basis.4 After eliminating the exemption for charities in a foreign country in 1923; Public Acts 1923, c. 190, 1; the legislature widened it in 1925 to include charities "wherever situated."5 Public Acts 1925, c. 47.
The phraseology of the present
At various times between 1921 and 1931, the statute did permit an exemption for certain charities "wheresoever incorporated or organized,"; General Statutes (Rev. to 1930) 1367; Public Acts 1929, c. 299, 8; "wherever situated"; Public Acts 1927, c. 201; Public Acts 1925, c. 47; or "of a foreign country." Public Acts 1921, c. 283. All of these phrases were deleted as of 1931.
It is the intent of the legislature that charitable corporations are to be exempt from the succession tax only if they comply strictly with the requirements set out in the statute. See Caldor, Inc. v. Heffernan,
The obvious purpose of a death tax exemption for charitable institutions is no longer present if it pertains to a foreign country. Where property, or the income from it, is devoted to the appropriate purposes within *28
the state, the state is compensated for its loss of revenue by its relief from the burden which would otherwise fall upon it and which it would have to meet by appropriations from the public funds. McLaughlin v. Poucher,
The plaintiffs argue that the transfer for the Highland View Hospital is exempt under the "public institution for exclusively public purposes" provision of
It is true that prior to 1931 the plaintiffs' transfer would have been exempt since the general assembly specifically permitted exemptions to charities of foreign countries. Any such words, however, were deleted from the statute as of 1931. Public Acts 1931, c. 274. Today,
The second claim made by the plaintiffs is that the transfers to Trinity-St. Stephen's Church and to Highland View Hospital are exempt under the reciprocal provisions of
The plaintiffs posit that the word "state" as used in
To both parts of the question in the reservation we answer, "no."
In this opinion the other judges concurred.