134 A. 427 | Pa. | 1926
At the time of her death, testatrix, a resident of South Carolina, owned real estate located in Pennsylvania. When this Commonwealth sought to collect an inheritance tax thereon, appellant, one of her residuary *51 devisees and legatees, claimed it could not be imposed because her will worked an equitable conversion of the property. The court below decided against this contention, and held that the realty was liable for the tax, because of the Act of June 20, 1919, P. L. 521, which was in force when testatrix died. The present appeal was then taken.
The case was decided below, after our decision in Frick's Est.,
In Miller v. Com.,
The historical background of all our decisions, above referred to, is the necessary rule that, where a devisee has died after the testator, the question whether his heirs or personal representatives shall take the gift, depends on whether it was realty or the proceeds of realty. There is, however, an essential difference between that situation and the one which arises when the right to tax such a gift is under consideration. In the former, it is a matter subsequent (the death of the devisee after testator) which compels a consideration of *53
the effect of the new status; in the latter, however, there is no need to consider the changed condition, since the Commonwealth's right, if it has any, arises immediately on the death of the testator: Handley's Est.,
If the matter be looked at from the standpoint of the results which would follow from giving full effect to the logic of the decision in Frick v. Pennsylvania, supra, we find that doing so would make for simplicity, certainty, uniformity and a reduced cost of collecting inheritance taxes. Heretofore a number of contingencies affected the question of the right to collect these taxes on the value of realty located elsewhere than at the domicile of the testator. It had to appear that decedent had made a will, which had been found, probated and not overthrown by a contest, and that, by its terms, the realty was equitably converted, — a matter not infrequently decided only after a long and expensive litigation, resulting, at times, in a double exaction, and, on other occasions, in a total escape from liability. If the courts of the domicile held a conversion was worked, and the courts of the situs decided otherwise (as, unhappily, was the fact in this estate), each jurisdiction would impose an inheritance tax; if the courts of the domicile held a conversion was not worked, and the courts of the situs that it was, neither would impose the tax. On the other hand, if the tax is assessed only at the situs of the tangible property, and according to the law in force thereat (as equitably and logically it should be: Frick v. Pennsylvania, supra; Easby's Est.,
We, therefore, decide that where, as here, tangible property belonging to a decedent's estate is located within this Commonwealth, an inheritance tax may be charged upon its transfer, as prescribed by section 1 (b) of the Act of 1919, supra, no matter where decedent was domiciled at the time of his death; but where the tangible property is located in some other state, the tax cannot be imposed by us, because no matter what our statutes say, or where decedent's domicile was, any attempt so to do would be unconstitutional.
The judgment of the court below is affirmed.