Mason v. Sargent

Decision Date01 October 1881
Citation26 L.Ed. 894,104 U.S. 689
PartiesMASON v. SARGENT
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. George Putnam for the plaintiffs in error.

The Solicitor-General, contra.

MR. JUSTICE MATTHEWS delivered the opinion of the court.

The action was brought by William P. Mason and Walter C. Cabot, to recover back the amount of a legacy tax, paid, under protest, by them to John Sargent, the defendant, as collector of internal revenue for the Fourth Massachusetts District.

The facts upon which the judgment was rendered in the court below, it was agreed, were as follows: William P. Mason, the plaintiffs' testator, died Dec. 4, 1867. By his will, duly proved and allowed, the personal property upon which the tax in question was levied was bequeathed to plaintiffs in trust for his widow for her life, and upon her death one-half to the plaintiff, William P. Mason, and one-half to Elizabeth R. Cabot children of the testator of full age at his death. The widow died on June 17, 1872. In April, 1873, the tax in question was assessed by Jonathan H. Mann, assessor of said district; and, May 13, 1873, plaintiffs paid defendant said tax under protest, to avoid distraint or other forcible process to collect the same. May 19, 1873, plaintiffs duly made claim upon the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for the refunding of said tax, for the reason that the said property did not vest in possession in the plaintiffs' cestuis que trust, until the death of the testator's widow, which occurred after Oct. 1, 1870, the date at which the repeal of the legacy succession tax went into effect, and that the tax had not accrued at said date so as to come within the saving clause of the act of repeal. Act of July 14, 1870, sect. 17. Aug. 5, 1873, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue rejected the appeal, 'for the reason that the tax accrued under the 124th section of the act of June 30, 1864, and was saved by section 17 of the act of July 14, 1870, and, still existing, was properly assessed.' Judgment was rendered in favor of the collector, and the plaintiffs sued out this writ of error.

The tax in question was imposed by sect. 124 of the act of June 30, 1864, c. 173 (13 Stat. 223, 285), upon legacies or distributive shares of personal property exce ding the sum of $1,000, passing, after the passage of the act, from a decedent, either testate or intestate, in the hands of an executor, administrator, or trustee, varying in rate, as the party beneficially entitled was less or more remote in consanguinity, or a stranger in blood, to the person from whom it passed; with a proviso that legacies or distributive interests in intestate estates, passing to husband or wife, should be exempt from such tax.

Section 125 of the same act, as amended by the act of July 13, 1866, c. 184 (14 id. 98, 140), provides that this legacy tax or duty 'shall be due and payable whenever the party interested in such legacy or distributive share or property or interest aforesaid shall become entitled to the possession or enjoyment thereof, or to the beneficial interest in the profits accruing therefrom,' &c. It also provides that it shall be a lien for twenty years, unless sooner paid, upon the property taxed; and the executor, administrator, or trustee, having charge of the property, is required, within thirty days after he shall have taken charge of the trust, to give notice thereof to the assessor of the district in which the deceased last resided. He is also required, before payment of the legacy to the legatee, to pay the tax to the collector. As a preliminary to the payment of the tax to the collector, he is further required to make out in duplicate a schedule, list or statement, containing the names of every person entitled to any beneficial interest in the property, together with the clear value of such interest, the original of which he renders to the assessor, and the duplicate of which 'shall be by him immediately delivered, and the tax thereon paid to such collector.' The collector gives him a receipt, which is his voucher for that much paid on account of the legacy in his settlement with the legatee.

By the third section of the act of July 14, 1870, c. 255 (16 ...

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27 cases
  • Coolidge v. Long 1930
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • February 24, 1931
    ...arbitrary nor capricious, and so not violative of the Fifth Amendment. Clapp v. Mason, 94 U. S. 589, 24 L. Ed. 212, and Mason v. Sargent, 104 U. S. 689, 26 L. Ed. 894, arose under the Succession Tax Act of June 30, 1864, § 124 et seq., 13 Stat. 285. Vanderbilt v. Eidman, 196 U. S. 480, 25 S......
  • The State ex rel. Garth v. Switzler
    • United States
    • Missouri Supreme Court
    • March 15, 1898
    ...tax should be paid by the legatee or distributee, or be taken out of his particular share. State ex rel. v. Mann, 45 N.W. 526; Moore v. Sargent, 104 U.S. 689. (a) The act March 16, 1897, requires the estate to be valued and the tax assessed immediately after the return of the inventory and ......
  • Lacy v. State Treasurer
    • United States
    • Iowa Supreme Court
    • May 15, 1909
    ...to personal property are not in point. See especially Orr v. Gilman, 183 U. S. 278, 288, 22 Sup. Ct. 213, 46 L. Ed. 196;Mason v. Sargent, 104 U. S. 689, 26 L. Ed. 894;Carpenter v. Pennsylvania, 17 How. 456, 462, 15 L. Ed. 127. For while in Ferry v. Campbell, 110 Iowa, 290, 299, 81 N. W. 604......
  • Eben Knowlton v. Frank Moore
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • May 14, 1900
    ...the act of 1864 was repealed in 1870. 16 Stat. at L. 256, chap. 255. After the repeal, the court was called upon, in Mason v. Sargent, 104 U. S. 689, 26 L. ed. 894, to consider whether, when one who held a life estate in a legacy died subsequent to the repeal of the act, the interest of the......
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