Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/656

This page needs to be proofread.
620
HARVARD LAW REVIEW
620

620 HARVARD LAW REVIEW New York corporation, standing in the name of a New York broker who holds the certificate for a nonresident owner, is tax- able in New York.^®^ In New York and a few other states, how- ever, where both the property and the beneficiaries are outside the state, a resident trustee will not be taxed; though the power of the legislature by a change in the law to tax him is not doubted.^^ The power of the state of his residence to tax the beneficiary of a trust cannot be doubted,^^^ though in some states it has been held that without the aid of a statute it will not be done.^®^ In Kentucky it has been held that property held in trust cannot be taxed where the trustee resides, but only at the domicile of the beneficial owner.^®^ There seems to be no ground for distinguishing a testamentary trust from any other; and it has been held in a well-reasoned de- cision in Maine that nonresident trustees for nonresident bene- ficiaries, appointed in a will of a resident decedent, after they had removed the property outside the state, were not taxable, not- withstanding the origin of the trust.^^^ In a Pennsylvania case,^"" however, a trustee under the will of a deceased resident of New York changed his domicile to Pennsylvania, taking the trust prop- erty with him. He changed an investment after his removal. The court held that he was taxable upon the investment made in Pennsylvania, but not upon the trust property which had come into his hands in New York; the remarkable ground for the dis- tinction being, that as to the latter property he was not a trus- tee under the Pennsylvania law. He assuredly was owner of the property, though he held it, to be sure, in trust; and it would seem that the origin of his title was immaterial. Detroit v. Lewis, 109 Mich. 155, 66 N. W. 958 (1896); Carlisle v. Marshall, 36 Pa. 397 (i860).

  • " Matter of Newcomb, 71 App. Div. 606, 76 N. Y. Supp. 222 (1902) (affirmed

172 N. Y. 608, 64 N. E. 1123) (1902). "» People V. Tax Commissioners, 21 Abb. N. C. (N. Y.) 168 (1888); Goodsite v. Lane, 139 Fed. 593 (1905)- '^* Keeney v. New York, 222 U. S. 525 (191 2); Augusta v. Kimball, 91 Me. 605, 40 Atl. 666 (1898) (semble); Hunt v. Perry, 165 Mass. 287, 43 N. E. 103 (1896); Selden V. Brooke, 104 Va. 832, 52 S. E. 632 (1906); Wise v. Commonwealth (Va.), 95 S. E. 632 (1918); Brooklyn Trust Co. v. Booker (Va.), 95 S. E. 664 (1918). "7 Anthony v. Caswell, 15 R. I. 159, i Atl. 290 (1885). "8 Boske V. Security T. & S. V. Co. 22 Ky. L. Rep. 181, 56 S. W. 524 (1900). ^*9 Augusta V. Kimball, 91 Me. 605, 40 Atl. 666 (1898). "° Lewis V. Chester Coimty, 60 Pa. 325 (1869).