TAXATION-RETROSPECTIVE SUCCESSION TAX ON TRUST REMAINDER

Authors

Abstract

The settlors voluntarily placed property in trust, the income from which was to be paid to them during their lives, the corpus to be divided upon the surviving settlors' death, among their sons, or if any son predeceased the survivor, among those persons entitled to take his intestate property. Subsequently the settlors assigned their life interest to the sons; this conveyance, however, in the case of Coolidge v. Loring, 235 Mass. 220, 126 N.E. 276, was held ineffectual to eliminate the possible effect of the contingency of any son predeceasing the surviving settlor. Between the execution of the deed and the settlors' deaths a statute was enacted taxing "all property passing by deed, grant or gift made or intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment after the death of the grantor or donor, if such death occurs subsequent to the passage hereof." The state court sustained a tax under this statute on the property here involved. In a divided opinion the Supreme Court held that since the succession to this property was complete before the statute went into effect, its enforcement here would be repugnant both to the contract clause of the Constitution and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Coolidge v. Long, U. S. Sup. Ct. 1931, Adv. Ops. Nos. 33 and 34

Recommended Citation

TAXATION-RETROSPECTIVE SUCCESSION TAX ON TRUST REMAINDER, 29 Mich. L. Rev. 1095 (1931).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol29/iss8/36