366 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. aXJ. Xo. 532. 



Had Ave adhered inflexibly to the uni- 

 versal maxim of ancient laM'— m ob ilia per- 

 sonam sequuntur—the results would un- 

 questionably have been far better. Every 

 state laying a succession tax lays as 

 high a one as it deems best to impose. It 

 selects a certain subject for taxation and 

 presumably exacts all that it can fairly be 

 made to yield. For another state to tax 

 the same subject again, therefore, is to 

 impose a heavier burden than it ought to 

 bear. 



If the state in which the decedent's 

 estate is settled collects the only duty, 

 and this were the universal rule, nothing 

 in the long run could be lost by any other 

 state. On the average one would profit 

 as much as another by uniformity of rule. 

 While every state would let the citizens of 

 another withdraw the property of the dead 

 untaxed from its territory, its own citizens, 

 as heirs or legatees, would bring back 

 with equal freedom property of the same 

 kind from all the rest. 



As a matter of fact and history our 

 legislatures in this matter have claimed the 

 benefit of the rule mobilia personam 

 sequiintur whenever it served their pur- 

 pose to invoke it, and set it aside when- 

 ever it served their purpose to disregard it. 



The test of taxability, as respects a suc- 

 cession to intangible property of a non- 

 resident, may be said to be this: "Whatever 

 may be its form, if it have a money value 

 and, although it may be fully owned by 

 and fully transferable by the successor, 

 can not be enforced or converted into 

 money contrary to the will of the person 

 against whom the right of property exists, 

 without coming into the state imposing the 

 tax, then it is property Mdthin that state 

 and taxable as such.* 



*In re Whiting's Estate, 150 N. Y. Reports, 

 27; 44 Northeastern Reporter, 715; 34 Lawyers' 

 Reports Annotated, 322; 55 Am. States Reports, 



If a citizen of Texas die, having money 

 on deposit in a New York bank, a succes- 

 sion tax may be levied on it by New York 

 as well as by Texas.* If he leave bonds 

 in his box in the vaults of a New York Safe 

 Deposit company, and they are due from 

 a citizen or corporation of New York, both 

 states can exact the same percentage on 

 these. II the bonds are those of a person 

 or corporation of a third state, they may 

 be subject to three taxes. The state where 

 he lived lays a succession tax on their full 

 value because he was subject to its power. 

 The state in which the bonds are deposited 

 for safe-keeping lays a tax of the same, or 

 perhaps greater amount, on their full 

 value, because the bonds are in its hands, 

 and it will not let them go without receiv- 

 ing it. The state where the debtor who 

 signed the bonds belongs can also levy as 

 large a tax, because it can refuse any 

 remedy in its courts for their collection 

 except on such terms as it may itself lay 

 down. So in the case of corporation stocks, 

 the shareholder's estate pays one succes- 

 sion tax to the state of which he was a 

 citizen, and those who succeed to him pay 

 another to the state chartering the corpora- 

 tion, and possibly a third to a state in 

 which the stock certificates were kept ;t for 

 by holding on to them till such tax were 

 paid it could put a serious obstacle in the 

 way of their sale and transfer. 



It is to be remembered also that there is 

 no constitutional limit to the rate of taxa- 

 tion. In Holland in the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, collateral successions falling to the re- 

 moter kindred were subject to a deduction 



040; In re Houdayer's Estate, 150 N. Y. Reports, 

 37; 44 Northeastern Reporter, 718; 34 Lawyers' 

 Reports Annotated, 235; 55 Am. State Reports, 

 642; Buck v. Beach Indiana Reports, 71 North- 

 eastern Reporter, 962. 



* Blackstone v. Miller, 188 U. S. Reports, 189. 



t In re Bronson, 150 N. Y. Reports, ] ; 44 

 Northeastern Reporter, 707. 



