State ex rel. Caster v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co.

Citations

• 99 Kan. 831

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>Inheritance Tax — Transfer of Stock in Domestic Corporation — Statute Repealed — “Saving Clause” Construed. In 1912 a Kansas statute was in force imposing a tax upon legacies and successions, which contained a provision that if a domestic corporation should record a transfer of its stock by a foreign executor before the payment of the tax thereby required, it should be liable therefor. In that year a nonresident died whose will disposed of stock in a Kansas corporation. In 1913 the statute was repealed ” with no qualification except that found in the general saving clause which preserves “any right which accrued” and “any duty imposed” by virtue thereof. The tax has , never been paid. In 1916 the stock was presented to the corporation and its transfer to the legatees was recorded. The state brought an action against the corporation for the amount of the tax. Held:</p> <p>(1) The obligation of the executor and legatees to pay the tax, and the right of the state to demand it of them, survived the repeal of the statute.</p> <p>(2) The action can not be maintained against the corporation, because the right of the state to look to the corporation to refuse (at such time in the future as its action should be invoked) to record the transfer of the stock while the tax remained unpaid was not at the time of the repeal an accrued right within the meaning of the saving clause; and the obligation of the corporation in that regard had not then become a “duty imposed.”</p>