State v. Guinotte

Citation275 Mo. 298,204 S.W. 806
Decision Date28 June 1918
Docket NumberNo. 20717.,20717.
PartiesSTATE ex rel. McCLINTOCK et al. v. GUINOTTE, Probate Judge.
CourtMissouri Supreme Court

Beardsley & Beardsley, of Kansas City, Martin E. Lawson, of Liberty, and John M. Atkinson, of St. Louis, for relators. Frank W. McAllister, Atty. Gen., S. E. Skelley, George V. Berry, Thomas J. Cole, and John T. Gose, Asst. Attys. Gen., for respondents. W. B. & Ford W. Thompson, Glendy B. Arnold, and Collins, Barker & Britton, all of St. Louis, amid. curiæ.

GRAVES, J.

This is certiorari to the probate court of Jackson county. To our writ return has been made by certifying up the full record. The real point is the validity or nonvalidity of the 1917 act of the Missouri Legislature, commonly called the Inheritance Tax Law. Missouri Laws of 1917, p. 114. The title of the act reads:

"An act providing for a tax on the transfer of gifts, legacies, inheritances, bequests, devises, appointments and successions; providing for its payment and collection, establishing and enforcing liens therefor; providing the method of procedure for determining the amount thereof and liability therefor and providing for suits to quiet title against claims of liens arising by reason thereof and to repeal article 14, chapter 2 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri of 1909 entitled `collateral inheritance tax' and all amendments thereto."

The probate court of Jackson county, was proceeding under this act of 1917 in the estate of Robert McClintock, deceased. The court appointed one John A. Kurtz to appraise and fix the clear market value of each interest in the estate, which was done. By his will Robert McClintock, deceased, had devised all of his large estate to his wife, Mary H. McClintock, his son, Robert S. McClintock, and his two granddaughters, all of whom are relators herein. The said Kurtz found the value of the interests and fixed the taxes as follows:

"(1) Robert S. McClintock, son, real estate of the value of $100,000.00; personal property of the value of $28,162.50, making a total value of $128,162.50, and deduction therefrom, as a legal exemption, the sum of $5,000.00, and charged an inheritance tax against the remaining sum of $123,162.50 at the rate of 1 per cent. on the first $20,000.00, after allowing said sum of $5,000.00 as a legal exemption, and 2 Per cent. on amounts from $20,000.00 to $40,000.00 and 3 per cent. on amounts from $40,000.00 to $80,000.00, and 4 per cent. on amounts from $80,000.00 to $200,000.00, thus assessing and fixing the total inheritance tax charged against the interest of said relator Robert S. McClintock, in the sum of $3,526.50. (2) Mary Agnes Keller, granddaughter, personal property of the value of $28,250.00, and deducted therefrom as a legal exemption the sum of $5,000.00, and charged as inheritance tax against the remaining sum of $23,250.00 at the rate of 1 per cent. on the first $20,000.00, after allowing said sum of $5,000.00 as a legal exemption, and 2 per cent. on amounts from $20,000.00 to $40,000.00, thus assessing and fixing the total inheritance tax charged against the interest of said relator Mary Agnes Keller in the sum of $265.00. (3) Martha Agnes Keller, granddaughter, personal property of the value of $28,250.00, and deducted therefrom as a legal exemption the sum of $5,000.00, and charged an inheritance tax against the remaining sum of $23,250.00 at the rate of 1 per cent. on the first $20,000.00, after allowing said sum of $5,000.00 as a legal exemption, and 2 per cent. on amounts from $20,000.00 to $40,000.00, thus assessing and fixing the total inheritance tax charged against the interest of said relator Martha Agnes Keller in the sum of $265.00. (4) Mary H. McClintock, widow, real estate of the value of $40,500.00, personal property of the value of $24,868.69, making a total value of $65,368.69, and deducted therefrom as a legal exemption the sum of $15,000.00, and charged an inheritance tax against the remaining sum of $56,368.69 at the rate of 1 per cent. on the first $20,000.00, after allowing said sum of $15,000.00 as a legal exemption, and 2 per cent. on amounts from $20,000.00 to $40,000.00, and 3 per cent. on amounts from $40,000.00 to $80,000.00, thus assessing and charging the total inheritance tax charged against the interest of said relator Mary H. McClintock in the sum of $911.06—thus making the total inheritance tax charged against said estate of Robert McClintock, deceased, in the sum of $4,967.56."

The judgment of the probate court followed the recommendation of Kurtz, and it is this judgment which relators challenge here. They challenge this judgment and proceeding in the probate court thus:

"Relators further state that said probate court was without any authority, power, and jurisdiction in the premises aforesaid, for the reason that said act providing for said inheritance tax, in pursuance of which said probate court proceeded in the premises, is unconstitutional, void, and of no effect, because it is in conflict with and in violation of the Constitution of the state of Missouri and of the Constitution of the United States in the following particulars

"(1) Section 30 of article 2 of the Constitution of Missouri, which provides that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law.

"(2) Section 28 of article 4 of the Constitution of Missouri, which provides that no bill shall contain more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title.

"(3) Section 43 of article 4 of the Constitution of Missouri, which provides that all revenue collected and moneys received by the state from any source whatever shall go into the treasury, and the General Assembly shall have no power to divert the same, or to permit money to be drawn from the treasury, except in pursuance of regular appropriations made by law.

"(4) Subsection 16 of section 53 of article 4 of the Constitution of Missouri, which provides that the General Assembly shall not pass any local or special law changing the law of descent or succession.

"(5) Subsection 21 of section 53 of article 4 of the Constitution of Missouri, which provides that the General Assembly shall not pass any local or special law affecting the estates of minors or persons under disability.

"(6) Section 3 of article 10 of the Constitution of Missouri, which provides that taxes may be levied and collected for public purposes only, and that they shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects within the territorial limits of the authority levying such taxes.

"(7) Section 4 of article 10 of the Constitution of Missouri, which provides that all property subject to taxation shall be taxed in proportion to its value.

"(8) Section 8 of article 10 of the Constitution of Missouri, which fixes the rate of the state tax on property.

"(9) Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, in that said act (1) deprives relators and other persons of property without due process of law; and (2) denies to relators and other persons within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law."

This suffices to state the case.

I. Before taking up the things urged against this law, it might be well to see just what the law is in fact. Throughout it speaks of a tax on transfer of property. But the word "tax" has a broad as well as a restricted meaning. We must consider the act as a whole to get the legislative idea. It is clear from a reading of this law that the lawmaking power was impressed with the idea that the right of inheritance was not an absolute right, but, on the other hand, was a right which might or might not be granted by the state. It is also clear that the Legislature recognized its power to change and modify the law as to descents and distributions, for we have no constitutional provisions restricting the lawmakers in this regard. Whilst by the Constitution we are compelled to recognize certain common-law rules, yet we are not compelled to recognize them after the lawmakers of the state change or abolish them.

Inheritance of property is not an absolute or natural right, and is not a right which may not be abolished by the lawmakers. We mean by this that there is no constitutional provision in this state which would prohibit the lawmaking power from changing or abolishing entirely the law as to descents and distributions. That we have changed these laws (and radically so) is made apparent by our decisions. Perry v. Strawbridge, 209 Mo. 621, 108 S. W. 641, 16 L. R. A. (N. S.) 244, 123 Am. St. Rep. 510, 14 Ann. Cas. 92. If under the Constitution we can radically change such laws, we can likewise abolish them, and this on the theory that the right of inheritance of property is not a natural right, but one purely produced by the laws of the sovereign. In 9 R. C. L. p. 13, it is said:

"It has been asserted in a comparatively recent case that the right to demand that property pass by inheritance or will is an inherent right, subject only to reasonable regulation by the Legislature. It seems, however, that no authority can be found to support this view, which is contrary, furthermore, to that of all the historians of law and of all economic writers. Indeed, the entire body of the law of descent and distribution seems to have been built upon the opposite conclusion, viz. that the right to take property, either real or personal, by inheritance, is purely statutory, and it is said that all statutes regulating the descent and distribution of interstate estates may be considered as positive, and, in some degree, arbitrary rules, which cannot be changed by the court in order to make them confirm to its conception of right and justice in particular cases."

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