In re Budell's Estate

• Decision Date: 18 September 1926
• Parties: In re BUDELL'S ESTATE.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

134 A. 552

In re BUDELL'S ESTATE.

Prerogative Court of New Jersey.

Sept. 18, 1926.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

In the matter of the estate of Louis W. Budell, deceased. Transfer tax proceeding. On motion to strike out the petition. Motion granted.

Edward L. Katzenbach, Atty. Gen., for the motion.

William H. Osborne, of Newark, opposed.

BUCHANAN, Vice Chancellor. The comptroller assessed a tax against the estate of Louis W. Budell, deceased, under the provisions of the Transfer Inheritance Tax Act (P. L. 1909, p. 325, as amended; 4 Comp. St. 1910, p. 5301, as amended), on September 30, 1924. The tax was paid in full (albeit under protest, it is said) on December 16, 1924. The petition in the present proceeding was filed May 4, 1926.

The motion to dismiss the proceeding is based on the ground that the court has no jurisdiction to entertain it, first, because the proceeding is not an "appeal," as specified in section 18 of the statute; secondly, because even if it be an appeal, it was not brought "within 60 days after the making and filing of the assessment," as specified in the section aforesaid,

The petition contends that the appeals provided for in section 18 are limited to questions of figures, or computation, or amount of appraisement or assessment; that questions of liability to tax cannot be raised in that way; that section 20 must be construed to clothe aggrieved persons with further and broader rights and powers to bring before this court for determination such questions as those of liability or jurisdiction.

Not so. The appeal specified in section 18 is in no wise so limited. The section provides for the making of appraisement by appraisers, report thereof to the comptroller, and the assessment and levying of the tax by the comptroller. Such assessment necessarily is based upon a finding by the comptroller of jurisdiction and liability. The section awards an appeal to any person "dissatisfied with said appraisement or assessment." Denial of jurisdiction or of liability to tax are surely good grounds for dissatisfaction with an assessment which inherently determines them, just as much as denial of the accuracy of valuations or computations. The same conclusion was expressed in Re Vineland Historical, etc., Society, 66 N. J. Eq. 291, at page 293, 56 A. 1039, the only difference being that, under the statute then in force, the appraisement and assessment were made by the surrogate (instead of the comptroller) and the appeal was to the...