91 N.J. Eq. 72 | N.J. | 1919
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The appeal in this case was taken from a decree of the ordinary setting aside, pro tanto, the assessment of a transfer tax laid by the comptroller of the state treasury upon the estate of Ferdinand W. Roebling. deceased, who, at the time of his death, in March, 1917, was a resident of the state.
Our act to tax the transfer of property of resident and nonresident decedents (P. L. 1909 p. 325), after enacting in section
The section then provides that any person or corporation dissatisfied with the appraisement or assessment may appeal to the ordinary of this state, and the twentieth section vests the ordinary with jurisdiction to hear and determine all questions in relation to any tax so levied.
In the present case, the comptroller of the treasury having assessed and levied a transfer tax upon the Roebling estate, the parties interested therein appealed to the ordinary, who, as has been already stated, reduced, the tax so assessed and levied. The state comptroller thereupon took this appeal from the decree of the ordinary, and the question to be determined is whether an appeal will lie directly to this' court.
That the legislative purpose exhibited by the statute is to provide the imposition of a tax upon the transfer of the estates of decedents, and not merely to regulate the procedure to be followed in the settlement of such estates, a matter cognizable by the ordinary, irrespective of the statute (as was suggested by counsel at the argument), we have no doubt. Mr. Cooley, in his work on Taxation, accurately defines taxes as the enforced proportional contribution of persons and property, levied by the authority of the state, for the support of government, and for all public needs. The present impost comes within the definition. It is an enforced contribution; it is levied for the use of the state; and it imposes a common burden upon all of the class of persons embraced in the statutory scheme," i. e., all transferees of the estates of decedents. But a discussion of this point seems hardly necessary. The constitution of the state requires the legislature to express, in the title of every statute, the object of the enactment, and the object expressed in the present statute is “to tax the transfer of property of resident and non-resident decedents.”
It seems proper to add that we find nothing 'in the statute of 1909 to indicate a purpose on the part of the legislature to interfere with the power of review vested in the supreme court. The mere fact that it saw fit to designate the ordinary as the agency to pass upon the action of the state comptroller in assessing and levying the tax does not suggest such a purpose, particularly in view of the failure of the legislature to specify the method of reviewing the action of that judicial officer, and the knowledge of that body (which is to be imputed to them) that an attempt to transfer the power of review directly to this court would be in violation of one of the constitutional prerogatives of the supreme court.
The case before us involving, as it does, a matter of taxation, is reviewable by certiorari only, notwithstanding the fact that the legislative agency created for the purpose of a primary review of the action of the tax assessor is a court of record whose orders and decrees ordinarily are reviewable only by an appeal to this court.
The motion to dismiss must prevail.