Estate of Cope

Citations

• 191 Pa. 1
• 43 A. 79
• 1899 Pa. LEXIS 772

Syllabus

<p>Taxation—Direct inheritance tax—Constitutional law—Act of May 12, 1897.</p> <p>The Act of May 12, 1897, P. L. 56, entitled “ An act taxing gifts, legacies and inheritances in certain cases and providing for the collection thereof,” is an act imposing taxes on the personal property therein specified, and has none of the features of an intestate law, or of an act regulating the disposition of property by will, or by instruments in the nature thereof, and is essentially and avowedly a “ tax law.”</p> <p>The Act of May 12, 1897, P. L. 56, violates sections 1 and 2 of article 9 of the constitution of 1874, which declare that “ All taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects, within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax; but the general assembly may, by general laws, exempt from taxation public property used for public purposes, actual places of religious worship, plaees of burial not used or held for private or corporate profit, and institutions of purely public charity.</p> <p>“ All laws exempting property from taxation, other than the property above enumerated, shall be void.”</p> <p>If the Act of May 12, 1897, P. L. 56, should be construed as an act intending to change the law of descent and succession so as to give the commonwealth a certain portion of every decedent’s estate (if exceeding $5,000), it would violate article 3, section 7 of the constitution which declares “The general assembly shall not pass any local or special law .... changing the law of descent or succession.”</p> <p>The exemption of property less than the value of $250 in the collateral inheritance tax law, is not a valid precedent, since this exemption was created in 1826, at a time when there were no limitations upon the power of the legislature as to special legislation and tax exemption.</p>