as those prescribed in the Revenue Act of 1918. The rates imposed by the Revenue Act of 1924 are different from those prescribed in any of the prior acts, and are applicable to the estates of decedents dying after 4:01 p. m., Washington, D. C., time, June 2, 1924. A table of the several rates is given below:

The rates prescribed by the different acts, as set forth in the preceding table, apply to the estates of decedents dying within the following dates:49

Column 1, Revenue Act of 1916, effective September 9, 1916, to March 2, 1917, inclusive.

Column 2, amendment of March 3, 1917, effective from March 3, 1917, to October 3, 1917, inclusive.

Column 3, Revenue Act of 1917, effective from October 4, 1917, to 6:55 p. m., Washington, D. C., time, February 24, 1919, inclusive.

Column 4, Revenue Act of 1918, effective from 6:55 p. m., February 24, 1919, to 3:55 p. m., November 23, 1921; and Revenue Act of 1921, effective from 3:55 p. m., November 23, 1921, to 4:01 p. m., June 2, 1924, Washington, D. C., time. Column 5, Revenue Act of 1924, effective from and after 4:01 p. m., June 2, 1924, Washington, D. C., time.

ART. 8. Computation of tax.-For the purpose of computing the tax, the net estate is divisible into blocks, each block being taxed at a different and increasing rate. The preceding table

49 See Page v. Skinner, (1924), 298 Fed. 731, 4 Am. Fed. Tax R. 4370.

gives the amount of the various blocks and the applicable rate of tax under each of the taxing acts. For example, the tax upon the net estate of $1,240,000 of a decedent dying on July 1, 1924, is computed as follows:

(Supreme Court of the United States, 1900. 178 U. S. 41, 20 Sup. Ct. 747, 44 L. ed. 969, 3 Am. Fed. Tax R. 2684.)

Mr. Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.50 The act of Congress of June, 1898, which is usually spoken of as the War Revenue Act (30 Stat. 448, c. 448), imposes various stamp duties and other taxes. Sections 29 and 30 of the statute, which are therein prefaced by the heading "Legacies and Distributive Shares of Personal Property," provide for the assessment and collection of the particular taxes which are described in the sections in question. To determine the issues which arise on this record it is necessary to decide whether the taxes imposed are void because repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and, if they be valid, to ascertain and define their true import.

The controversy was thus engendered: Edwin F. Knowlton died in October, 1898, in the borough of Brooklyn, state of New York, where he was domiciled. His will was probated, and the executors named therein were duly qualified. As a preliminary to the assessment of the taxes imposed by the provisions of the statute, the collector of internal revenue demanded of the executors that they make a return showing the amount of the personal estate of the deceased, and disclosing the legatees and distributees thereof. The executors, asserting that they were not obliged to make the return because of the

50 Part of the opinion, dealing with the interpretation of the act and the constitutional requirement of uniformity, is omitted.

Followed as to the Revenue Act of 1916, New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, (1921) 256 U. S. 345, 41 Sup. Ct. 506, 65 L. ed. 963, 3 Am. Fed. Tax R. 3110.

unconstitutionality of §§ 29 and 30 of the statute, nevertheless complied, under protest. The report disclosed that the personal estate was appraised at $2,624,029.63, and afforded full information as to those entitled to take the same. The amount of the tax assessed was the sum of $42,084.67. . It is apparent, .. that the collector, whilst levying the tax on the legacies and distributive shares, or the right to receive the same, yet, for the purpose of fixing the rate of the tax, took into view the whole of the personal estate of the deceased. That is, whilst the tax was laid upon the legacies, the rate thereof was fixed by a separate and distinct right or thing, the entire personal estate of the deceased. The executors protested against the entire tax, and also as to the method by which it was assessed. The grounds of the protest were as follows:

"1. The provisions of the act of Congress under which it is sought to impose, assess, and collect the said tax or duty are in violation of the provisions of article 1, sections 8 and 9, of the Constitution of the United States, and are therefore void.

"2. The legacies to George W. Knowlton, Charlotte A. Batchelor, the Unitarian Church of West Upton, Mass., each amount to less than $10,000, and are not subject to any tax or duty under the said provisions of the said act of Congress, even if such provisions be not unconstitutional and void.

"3. The legacy to Eben J. Knowlton, a brother of the testator, amounts to only $100,000, and under the said provisions. of the said act should be taxed at the rate of $1.122 per $100, and not at the rate of $2.25 per $100, even if said act be not unconstitutional and void."

Demand having been made by the collector for the payment, accompanied with a threat to distrain in case of refusal, the tax was paid under written protest, which repeated the grounds above stated. In the receipt given it was recited that the tax had been paid under protest to avoid the use of compulsory process. A petition for refunding was subsequently presented by the executors, in which the grounds of the protest were reiterated. The commissioner of internal revenue having made an adverse ruling, the present suit was commenced to recover the amount paid. The facts as to the assessment and collection

of the taxes were averred, and the refusal of the internal revenue commissioner to refund was alleged. The petition for refunding was made a part of the pleadings. The right to repayment was based upon the averment that the sections of the statute, under authority of which the amount had been assessed and collected, were unconstitutional. The circuit court sustained a demurrer, on the ground that no cause of action was alleged. The claim was rejected, and the suit was dismissed with costs.

The questions which arise on this writ of error to review the judgment of the circuit court are fourfold: First, that the taxes should have been refunded because they were direct taxes, and not being apportioned were hence repugnant to article 1, section 8, of the Constitution of the United States; second, if the taxes were not direct, they were levied on rights created solely by state law, depending for their continued existence on the consent of the several states, a volition which Congress has no power to control, and as to which it could not, therefore, exercise its taxing authority; third, if the taxes were not direct, and were not assessed upon objects or rights which were beyond the reach of Congress, nevertheless the taxes were void, because they were not uniform throughout the United States, as required by article 1, section 9, of the Constitution of the United States; fourth, because, although the taxes be held to have been in all respects constitutional, nevertheless they were illegal, since in their assessment the rate of the tax was determined by the aggregate amount of the personal estate of the deceased, and not by the sum of the legacies or distributive shares, or the right to take the same, which were the objects upon which by law the taxes were placed..

Tax laws of this nature in all countries rest in their essence upon the principle that death is the generating source from which the particular taxing power takes its being, and that it is the power to transmit, or the transmission from the dead to the living, on which such taxes are more immediately rested.

Having ascertained the nature of death duties, the first question which arises is this: Can the Congress of the United States levy a tax of that character? The proposition that it cannot rests upon the assumption that, since the transmission of property by death is exclusively subject to the regulating authority of the several states, therefore the levy by Congress of

a tax on inheritances or legacies, in any form, is beyond the power of Congress, and is an interference by the national government with a matter which falls alone within the reach of state legislation. It is to be remarked that this proposition denies to Congress the right to tax a subject-matter which was conceded to be within the scope of its power very early in the history of the government. The act of 1797, which ordained legacy taxes, was adopted at a time when the founders of our government and framers of our Constitution were actively participating in public affairs, thus giving a practical construction to the Constitution which they had helped to establish. Even the then members of the Congress who had not been delegates to the convention which framed the Constitution must have had a keen appreciation of the influences which had shaped the Constitution and the restrictions which it embodied, since all questions which related to the Constitution and its adoption must have been, at that early date, vividly impressed on their minds. It would, under these conditions, be indeed surprising if a tax should have been levied without question upon objects deemed to be beyond the grasp of Congress because exclusively within state authority. It is, moreover, worthy of remark that similar taxes have at other periods and for a considerable time been enforced; and, although their constitutionality was assailed on other grounds held unsound by this court, the question of the want of authority of Congress to levy a tax on inheritances and legacies was never urged against the acts in question. Whilst these considerations are of great weight, let us for the moment put them aside to consider the reasoning upon which the proposition denying the power in Congress to impose death duties must rest.

Confusion of thought may arise unless it be always remembered that, fundamentally considered, it is the power to transmit or the transmission or receipt of property by death which is the subject levied upon by all death duties. The qualification of such taxes as privilege taxes, or describing them as levied on a privilege, may also produce misconception, unless the import of these words be accurately understood. They have been used where the power of a state government to levy a particular form of inheritance or legacy tax has in some instances been assailed because of a constitutional limitation on the taxing power. Under these circumstances, the question has arisen.