It will be observed that the duties imposed in section 29 have relation to two classes, first, legacies or distributive shares passing by death and arising from personal property; and, second any personal property or interest therein trans

United States, as follows-that is to say: Where the whole amount of said personal property shall exceed in value ten thousand dollars and shall not exceed in value the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, the tax shall be:

First. Where the person or persons entitled to any beneficial interest in such property shall be the lineal issue or lineal ancestor, brother, or sister to the person who died possessed of such property, as aforesaid, at the rate of seventy-five cents for each and every hundred dollars of the clear value of such interest in such property.

Second. Where the person or persons entitled to any beneficial interest in such property shall be the descendent of a brother or sister of the person. who died possessed, as aforesaid, at the rate of one dollar and fifty cents for each and every hundred dollars of the clear value of such interest.

Third. Where the person or persons entitled to any beneficial interest in such property shall be the brother or sister of the father or mother, or a descendent of a brother or sister of the father or mother, of the person who died possessed as aforesaid, at the rate of three dollars for each and every hundred dollars of the clear value of such interest.

Fourth. Where the person or persons entitled to any beneficial interest in such property shall be the brother or sister of the grandfather or grandmother, or a descendant of the brother or sister of the grandfather or grandmother, of the person who died possessed as aforesaid, at the rate of four dollars for each and every hundred dollars of the clear value of such interest. Fifth. Where the person or persons entitled to any beneficial interest in such property shall be in any other degree of collateral consanguinity than as herein before stated, or shall be a stranger in blood to the person who died possessed, as aforesaid, or shall be a body politic or corporate, at the rate of five dollars for each and every hundred dollars of the clear value of such interest: Provided, That all legacies or property passing by will, or by the laws of any State or Territory, to husband or wife of the person died possessed, as aforesaid, shall be exempt from tax or duty.

Where the amount or value of said property shall exceed the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, but shall not exceed the sum or value of one hundred thousand dollars, the rates of duty or tax above set forth shall be multiplied by one and one-half; and where the amount or value of said property shall exceed the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, but shall not exceed the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, such rates of duty shall be multiplied by two; and where the amount or value of said property shall exceed the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, but shall not exceed the sum of one million dollars, such rates of duty shall be multiplied by two and one-half; and where the amount or value of said property shall exceed

ferred by deed, grant, bargain, sale or gift, to take effect in possession or enjoyment after the death of the grantor or bargainor, in favor of any person or persons, or to any body or bodies, politic or corporate, in trust or otherwise. As to this

the sum of one million dollars, such rates of duty shall be multiplied by three.

SEC. 30. That the tax or duty aforesaid shall be a lien and charge upon the property of every person who may die as aforesaid for twenty years, or until the same shall, within that period, be fully paid to and discharged by the United States; and every executor, administrator, or trustee, before payment and distribution to the legatees, or any parties entitled to beneficial interest therein, shall pay to the collector or deputy collector of the district of which the deceased person was a resident the amount of the duty or tax assessed upon such legacy or distributive share, and shall also make and render to the said collector or deputy collector a schedule, list, or statement, in duplicate, of the amount of such legacy or distributive share, together with the amount of duty which has accrued, or shall accrue, thereon, verified by his oath or affirmation, to be administered and certified thereon by some magistrate or officer having lawful power to administer such oaths, in such form and manner as may be prescribed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, which schedule, list, or statement shall contain the names of each and every person entitled to any beneficial interest therein, together with the clear value of such interest, the duplicate of which schedule, list, or statement shall be by him immediately delivered, and the tax thereon paid to such collector; and upon such payment and delivery of such schedule, list, or statement said collector or deputy collector shall grant to such person paying such duty or tax a receipt or receipts for the same in duplicate, which shall be prepared as hereinafter provided. Such receipt or receipts, duly signed and delivered by such collector or deputy collector, shall be sufficient evidence to entitle such executor, administrator, or trustee to be credited and allowed such payment by every tribunal which, by the laws of any State or Territory, is, or may be, empowered to decide upon and settle the accounts of executors and administrators. And in case such executor, administrator, or trustee shall refuse or neglect to pay the aforesaid duty or tax to the collector or deputy collector, as aforesaid, within the time herein before provided, or shall neglect or refuse to deliver to said collector or deputy collector the duplicate of the schedule, list, or statement of such legacies, property, or personal estate, under oath, as aforesaid, or shall neglect or refuse to deliver the schedule, list, or statement of such legacies, property, or personal estate, under oath, as aforesaid, or shall deliver to said collector or deputy collector a false schedule or statement of such legacies, property, or personal estate, or give the names and relationship of the persons entitled to beneficial interest therein untruly, or shall not truly and correctly set forth and state therein

second class, the statute specifically makes the liability for taxation depend, not upon the mere vesting in a technical sense of title to the gift, but upon the actual possession or enjoyment thereof. By any fair construction the limitation as to possession or enjoyment expressed as to one class must be applied to the other, unless it be found that the statute, whilst treating the two as one and the same for the purpose of the imposition of the death duty, has yet subjected them

the clear value of such beneficial interest, or where no administration upon such property or personal estate shall have been granted or allowed under existing laws, the collector or deputy collector shall make out such lists and valuation as in other cases of neglect or refusal, and shall assess the duty thereon; and the collector shall commence appropriate proceedings before any court of the United States, in the name of the United States, against such person or persons as may have the actual or constructive custody or possession of such property or personal estate, or any part thereof, and shall subject such property or personal estate, or any portion of the same, to be sold upon the judgment or decree of such court, and from the proceeds of such sale the amount of such tax or duty, together with all costs and expenses of every description to be allowed by such court, shall be first paid, and the balance, if any, deposited according to the order of such court, to be paid under its direction to such person or persons as shall establish title to the same. The deed or deeds, or any proper conveyance of such property or personal estate, or any portion thereof, so sold under such judgment or decree, executed by the officer lawfully charged with carrying the same into effect, shall vest in the purchaser thereof all the title of the delinquent to the property or personal estate sold under and by virtue of such judgment or decree, and shall release every other portion of such property or personal estate from the lien or charge thereon created by this act. And every person or persons who shall have in his possession, charge, or custody any record, file, or paper containing, or supposed to contain, any information concerning such property or personal estate, as aforesaid, passing from any person who may die, as aforesaid, shall exhibit the same at the request of the collector or deputy collector of the district, and to any law officer of the United States, in the performance of his duty under this act, his deputy or agent, who may desire to examine the same. And if any such person, having in his possession, charge, or custody any such records, files, or papers, shall refuse or neglect to exhibit the same on request, as aforesaid, he shall forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars: Provided, That in all legal controversies where such deed or title shall be the subject of judicial investigation, the recital in said deed shall be prima facie evidence of its truth, and that the requirements of the laws had been complied with by the officers of the Government.

to different rules. A consideration of the subsequent provisions of the section leaves no room for such a contention, since immediately following the designation of the two classes there are five distinct paragraphs, subjecting the passing of the property taxed in both classes to a different rate of tax, dependent upon the degree of relationship of the beneficiary to the decedent, and in each it is specifically provided that a tax is to be levied in respect only of a beneficial interest having a clear value. Moreover, the meaning of the statute, fairly to be deduced from the reiteration in each of the five paragraphs of the beneficial interest and clear value as the subject of the tax, is greatly strengthened by the inference to be drawn from the fact that nowhere in the section is there contained language referring to technical estates in personalty or treating them as subject of taxation, despite the absence of the right to immediate possession or enjoyment. And coming to consider section 30, relating to the collection of the duty or tax imposed by section 29, the meaning of section 29, as just indicated, is made clearer. Thus by section 30 it is provided that "every executor, administrator or trustee, before payment and distribution [of a legacy or distributive share] to the legatees, or any parties entitled to beneficial interest therein, shall pay to the collector of the district of which the deceased person was a resident the amount of the duty or tax assessed upon such legacy or distributive share." It also requires that the schedule, etc., to be furnished by an executor, administrator or trustee to a collector or deputy collector shall contain the name of each person having a beneficial interest in the property in the charge or custody of the executor, etc., with a statement "of the clear value of such interest."

These provisions harmonize with the meaning which we have ascribed to section 29, since they clearly import that the tax is to be deducted from a beneficial interest which the beneficiary was entitled to enjoy, and from which, before payment or distribution, a deduction of the duty was to be made.

In view of the express provisions of the statute as to possession or enjoyment and beneficial interest and clear value, and of the absence of any express language exhibiting an intention to tax a mere technically vested interest in a case where the right to possession or enjoyment was subordinated to an uncertain contingency, it would, we think, be doing violence to the statute to construe it as taxing such an interest before the period when possession or enjoyment had attached. And such is the construction which has been affixed to some state statutes, the text of which lent themselves more strongly to the construction that it was the intention to subject to immediate taxation merely technical interests, without regard to a present right to possess or enjoy. Matter of Curtis, 142 N. Y. 219, 222; Matter of Roosevelt, 143 N. Y. 120.

In the Matter of Hoffman, 143 N. Y. 327, the court was called upon to construe the meaning of a statute, enacted in 1892, providing that "all taxes imposed by this act shall be due and payable at the time of the transfer, provided, however, that taxes upon the transfer of any estate, property or interest therein limited, conditioned, dependent or determinable upon the happening of any contingency or future event, by reason of which the fair market value thereof cannot be ascertained at the time of the transfer as herein provided shall accrue and become due and payable when the persons or corporations beneficially entitled thereto shall come into actual possession or enjoyment thereof." Laws 1892, chap. 399, sec. 3. The court said:

"We are obliged to follow one of two lines of construction. We must open all the nice and difficult questions which arise under a will as to the vesting of technical legal estates, although future and contingent, and assess the tax upon what are in reality only possibilities and chances, and so complicate the statute with the endless brood of difficult questions which gather about the construction of wills; or we must construe it in view of its aim and purpose and the object it seeks to ac