State v. Clark

Citations

• 30 Wash. 439
• 71 P. 20
• 1902 Wash. LEXIS 707

Syllabus

<p>CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-LEGISLATIVE POWERS-INHERITANCE TAX.</p> <p>The absence in the constitution of specially delegated power to the legislature of this state to enact laws for the taxation of inheritances is not to be construed as a restriction of the right, under the provisions of the Bill of Rights, which declare in art. 1, § 1, that “all political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and in art. 1, § 30, that “the enumeration in this constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny others retained by the people,” since legacies and inheritances are but creatures of the law, and natural subjects for legislative control, in the absence of constitutional prohibition.</p> <p>SAME.</p> <p>Laws 1901, p. 67, providing for the taxation of inheritances is not invalid by reason of exempting some and laying proportional taxes on different ones, since the charges provided for are upon the passing of the estate by succession and are not a tax upon property, and hence do not conflict with art. 7, §§ 1, 2, 5, of the state constitution, which require all property to be taxed uniformly according to its value in money.</p> <p>SAME — ■ EQUALITY OE TAXATION.</p> <p>The exemption in the inheritance-tax law (Laws 1901, p. 68, i 2) from the provisions of the act of sums below 510,000 when the estate passes to direct heirs and kindred is not invalid as violating the constitutional requirement of equality in taxation, for the reason that it does not extend the same exemption to devises to collateral heirs or strangers to the blood, since there is no inequality provided among members of the same class, and such rule of equality does not forbid a liberal classification for purposes of taxation.</p>