In re the Accounting of Carey

206 Misc. 423, 132 N.Y.S.2d 650, 1954 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2661
CourtNew York Surrogate's Court
DecidedJune 18, 1954
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 206 Misc. 423 (In re the Accounting of Carey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Surrogate's Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re the Accounting of Carey, 206 Misc. 423, 132 N.Y.S.2d 650, 1954 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2661 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1954).

Opinion

Collins, S.

The objections to the executors’ account presented several issues, hut. many of the issues have been disposed of by stipulation and there remain for decision only the objec[425]*425tions to: (1) apportionment of estate taxes; (2) allocation of the discount earned on prepayment of the New York estate tax; (3) delivery of a speedboat to the widow on the theory that it was specifically bequeathed, and as supplemental thereto, payment by the estate for the repair and storage of the boat, and for insurance thereon.

(1) The taxable estate included an inter vivos trust fund created by the testator, a small trust that had been created nominally by the wife of the testator, a refund annuity policy, and a $10,000 life insurance policy, as well as the assets passing under the will. The widow is the beneficiary under the insurance policy, the beneficiary for life of the small trust fund, and she is entitled to the monthly payments under the annuity until the fund is exhausted. The testator had reserved the right to dispose by will of the income and principal of the large trust, and he expressly exercised that power, giving the income to his widow for her life or for the balance of the trust term, and to his daughters if his widow should die during the trust term. Upon termination of the trust, the corpus will go to the widow and daughters or their issue, under conditions and contingencies not here pertinent. The residuary estate is set up in trust for the life use of the widow, with remainder to the two daughters and a charity.

The Thirteenth paragraph of the will reads: “ I direct that all estate, transfer, succession, inheritance, legacy and similar taxes upon or with respect to so much of my estate as passes by, through or under Paragraphs Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth of this my Last Will, shall be paid out of my residuary estate and there shall be no proration of any such taxes, and I further direct that so much of such estate, transfer, succession, inheritance, legacy and similar taxes as may be assessed against my estate by reason of the inclusion for estate tax purposes of the trust referred to under Paragraph Seventh of this my Last Will, or any other assets not passing by, through or under this my Last Will, shall be apportioned to such trust and assets and shall be charged to and paid therefrom.”

The widow’s contention that there should be no apportionment of taxes against the assets passing outside the will is contrary to the express terms of the will and is without merit.

The executors propose an equitable apportionment of taxes against the residuary estate and all funds outside the will. One of the daughters and the special guardian of contingent beneficiaries construe the will as manifesting an intent to relieve the residuary estate from all burdens resulting from inclusion [426]*426in the taxable estate of all other assets and thus, in effect, giving the residuary estate all the tax deductions, the exemptions and the benefit of the lower tax brackets and charging the outside property at the higher tax levels.

The court reads the will as requiring equitable proration of estate taxes against the residuary estate and the other assets. It is true that the testator could have terminated paragraph thirteenth immediately after his direction against apportionment to the general and specific legatees, and those few words would have resulted in equitable apportionment against all other benefits. However, merely because the testator did advert to tax apportionment against the other assets, we are not bound to read his direction as different from the rule which the statute would apply had he remained silent. Draftsmen of legal instruments frequently prefer an explicit statement of intention rather than leaving it dependent upon inference, presumption or statutory rule. We must read the testator’s words fairly and in their context to determine whether he has merely restated the rule or expressed a contrary direction. When we read the full text, we find that the testator has emphatically stated the statutory rule as his own. He said that so much of the estate taxes as are assessed by reason of the inclusion in his taxable estate of the trust and other assets “ shall he apportioned to such trust and assets ”. To apportion a burden is to divide or assign it in just proportions. “ Apportionment ” and “ proration ” are the terms used in section 124 of Decedent Estate Law to express the policy of this State respecting equitable allocation of taxes. The testator has said that there shall be no “ proration ” against the general or specific legatees but that taxes shall be ‘ ‘ apportioned ’ ’ against the residue and the nontestamentary assets. If it were his purpose to vary the statutory rule of equitable proration, he would hardly have used the very words in which the statutory rule is expressed. On the contrary, it seems clear that having directed ‘ ‘ no pro-ration ” within a limited area, he .explicitly adopted as his own the statutory rule as to all the rest of the assets.

Matter of Jamison (272 App. Div. 434) and Matter of Werle (N. Y. L. J., June 19,1952, p. 2433, col. 4) involve quite different situations. The first cited case construed a provision which forgave an indebtedness on condition that the legatee would pay all taxes imposed thereby. In that will, the tax allocation clause was in an entirely separate paragraph. The court considered the nature of the legacy and the circumstances surrounding the gift ” (p. 436), as well as the text of the will. In [427]*427Matter of Werle (supra), the court considered not only the trust indenture, hut also a compromise agreement pursuant to which the trust was set up, and the surrounding circumstances, and on all of the facts the court found that it was the intention of the parties that the trust fund would represent full payment of the compromise claim and that the full amount of any additional tax caused by the inclusion of the trust in the taxable estate would he borne by a source other than the estate.

Another point of distinction between those cases and this is that each of the instruments which allocated the taxes disproportionately, placed the heavier burden upon its own fund, while in this case the construction of the will urged by respondents would charge the greater share against property not passing under the will. Putting aside for the moment the question of the power of the testator to charge his estate’s share of taxes against another fund, we should not attribute such a purpose to him unless it is clear that he is attempting to alter existing rights and obligations under those separate contracts and instruments. In the Seventh paragraph of his will, he exercised a reserved power to change beneficiaries and payments under the trust instrument and he specified precisely the nature and extent of the changes. Nothing in the Thirteenth paragraph indicates that he intended to make — assuming that he could do so — any further modifications. On the contrary, he here speaks only in the terms of the statute and attempts to make no other change than the statute would make for him.

The objections to the equitable apportionment of the estate taxes are, therefore, overruled.

(2) The testator died before the effective date of the revision of section 124. Hence that section as it existed in 1948, the time of his death, is applicable to his estate. The discount for early payment of the New York tax (Tax Law, § 249, subd. 2) was credited by the executors to income.

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Bluebook (online)
206 Misc. 423, 132 N.Y.S.2d 650, 1954 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2661, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-accounting-of-carey-nysurct-1954.