In re the Appraisal, under the Transfer Tax Act, of the Estate of Huntington

Charles P. Huntington, late of the city of New York, died April 20, 1900. By his last will and testament he bequeathed a separate legacy of $20,000 to each one of the following charitable corporations, each of which was incorporated under the laws of this state, namely, the Eoosevelt Hospital, the Children’s Aid Society, the New York Society for the Eelief of the Euptured and Crippled, and the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless. The surrogate in proceedings for appraisal under the

The act of 1900 provides:

“ Section 2. Article 10 of such chapter is hereby' amended by adding a section to be section two hundred and forty-three to read as follows :

“ Section 243. Exemptions in article one not applicable.— The exemptions enumerated in section 4 of the Tax Law, of which this article is a part, shall not be construed as being applicable in any manner to the provisions of article 10 hereof.” ' ■ ■

Manifestly it was intended by this new section to make the exemptions in section 4 of the General Tax Law no longer applicable to the exemptions under the Taxable Transfer Law, and no longer the rule by which such exemptions

We do not think there is any escape from the conclusion of the learned Appellate Division unless the contention of the comptroller is found to be valid. That contention is, that the Tax Law was such a revision and substitute for all former statutes, general and special, upon the subject of exemption from taxation as to supersede and repeal them by implication, thus repealing, among others, the provisions of the special acts which exémpted the property of the Roosevelt Hospital and the Children’s Aid Society, and taking from these" societies their special exemptions and leaving them in the class enumerated in "subdivision Y, section 4 of the Tax Law, and thus section 243, added by the act 'of 1900, makes the legacies to them taxable transfers.

In 1875 section 18 of article 3. of the State Constitution went into effect. It provided among other matters that “ The legislature shall not pass a private or local bill in any of the following cases: * * *" Granting to any private corporation, association or individual any exclusive privilege, immunity or franchise whatever. "* * * The legislature shall pass general laws providing for the cases enumerated in this section, and for all other cases which in its judgment, may be provided for by general laws.” The Tax Law- of 1896 was evidently intended to harmonize with the constitutional and legislative policy thus indicated. Article 12 of the Tax Law contains a schedule of one hundred and fifty-three acts and parts of acts which are expressly repealed by the Tax Law. This schedule does not mention the special acts exempting either the Roosevelt Hospital or Children’s Aid Society, or,

It is to be noticed that subdivision 7, section 4 of the general statute providing for exemptions, preserves, to use -the language of the commission, “the substance of existing statutes ” in respect of the exemption of the property of charitable corporations. It provides that “ The real property of a corporation or association organized exclusively for the moral or mental improvement of men or women, or for religious, bible, tract, charitable, benevolent, missionary, hospital, infirmary, educational, scientific, literary, library, patriotic, historical or cemetery purposes, or for the enforcement of laws relating to children or animals, or for two or more of such purposes, and used exclusively for carrying out thereupon one or more of such-purposes, and the personal property of any such corporation or association shall be exempt from taxation.”

With such a. general statute the corporations and associations enumerated in the subdivision need no special statute, unless, as is not here suggested, they use their property for purposes foreign to those for which they were organized. Unless they do so use it, there is no cpiestion of repugnancy or inconsistency between the general and jn'ivate statute. Conceding a repugnancy to the extent that private enterprise, masked under charitable privilege, should not be. exempt, and we have.a stronger reason for the repeal by implication of the exemptions which the special acts granted in this respect. The greater act seems to include all the less. Mor is there any suggestion that the private statute has some special fitness to the peculiar condition of any of these corporations, designated by name in such statute, which the general statute does not embrace. The only apparent reason for keeping the private statute alive is to secure a way of escape from the force of section 243, added to the Tax Law in 1900. It is not to be supposed that the framers of the Tax Law or of section 243 intended to keep such a way open. Manifestly the legislature intended by the addition of that section to subject all legacies

In our opinion the legislature intended by the Tax Law of 1896 to provide, pursuant to the Constitution, for this particular class of immunities from taxation, and to cover, as the act constituting the commissioners of statutory revision required, the whole field of “ the collection and assessment of taxes and exemption of property from taxation throughout the state,” so far, at least, as their view of the subject extended.

The Be vised Statutes of 1828, like the Tax Law of 1896, declared all real and personal property within the state to be liable to taxation, subject to the exemptions therein specified, but the exemptions were not broad enough to embrace the many charitable societies, great and small, which have since multiplied and developed with the growth of the state, and hence exemption was sought in many individual cases by special acts. (See Catlin v. Trustees of Trinity College, 113 N. Y. 133 .) To revise, restate and in some respects reform the tax laws, and. especially the scheme of exemptions so as to fit it to the greatness of the state and its policy as declared in its Constitution, required something like the Tax Law of 1896.

The organized charities and benevolent agencies which . actually relieve human misery, and labor in unselfish devotion to improve the moral and physical condition of mankind, are alike the fruits and aids of good government, and to exempt their property — usually the gifts of the benevolent — from the burdens of taxation is scarcely less the duty than the privilege of the enlightened legislator. Clearly this exemption should be placed upon broad, equitable grounds, quite above the injurious imputations sometimes resulting from individual or special exemptions. We suppose this spirit pre

The general rule of the liability to taxation of all property within the state was preserved, and the exemptions classified in sucli comprehensive phrase as to make all prior private and special exemptions unnecessary so far as the general act conferred the same exemptions as the special and private acts, and repugnant and inconsistent so far as the special and private acts conferred greater immunities and exemptions than the general act. If these views are correct, it was not necessary to search out the many private statutes conferring exemptions and to enumerate them in the schedule of the repealed statutes. In the construction of a statute of so much moment, enacted as the result of long experience, much discussion and great consideration, the rule that effect must he given to the intent of the legislature, if the language of the enactment will permit, is of commanding force. (Matter of Dobson, 146 N. Y. 357 ; People ex rel. Fleming v. Dalton, 158 N. Y. 175 ; Matter of Thrall, 157 N. Y. 46 ; People ex rel. Catholic Union v. Safes, 32 App. Div. 203 ; affirmed, 157 N. Y. 679 .)

It follows that the property of none of these societies is exempt from taxation, except under subdivision 7, section 4 of the Tax Law, and as the exemptions therein enumerated are not applicable to exemptions from taxable transfers, the legacy to each society is subject to the transfer tax.

The order of the Appellate Division is affirmed as to the Hew York Society for the Hup tur ed and Crippled and the American Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless, and reversed as to the Hoosevelt Hospital and the Children’s Aid Society, and the transfer tax imposed upon each legacy, without costs.

(dissenting). Section 220 of the General Tax Law (Chapter 908 of the Laws of 1896) imposes a tax of five per centum “ upon the transfer of any property, real or personal, of the value of five hundred dollars or over,

But I am unable to -find anything in the General Tax Law of 1896 indicating a legislative intent to repeal, or affecting in the. slightest degree the charters or special acts exempting the property of charitable corporations from taxation. On the contrary, subdivision 1 of section 4 of that law expressly exempts from taxation the real and personal property of all corporations or associations “organized exclusively for the moral or mental improvement of men or women, ' or for religious, bible, tract, charitable, benevolent, missionary, hosr pi tal, infirmary, educational, scientific, literary, library, patriotic, historical or cemetery purposes, or for the enforcement of laws relating to children or animals, or for two or more of such purposes.” So if the corporations in question had not already been exempt by special provisions of law this provision- would have exempted their property from taxation. A provision which seeks to secure to all charitable corporations exemption from taxation certainly cannot be said to suggest -a legislative intent to repeal charters containing like exemptions.

After the General Tax Law went into effect, then, the Roosevelt Hospital and the Children’s Aid Society were exempt from the transfer tax because by their charters their

“ Exemptions in article one not applicable.—The exemptions enumerated in section four of the tax law, of which this article is a part, shall not be construed as being applicable in any manner to the provisions of article ten hereof.”

After that section took effect, corporations and associations depending upon subdivision 7 of section 4 for exemption of their real and personal property from taxation, became subject to a tax upon transfer of property under section 220, but corporations exempted by other legislative enactments were not affected by it for the section was in terms applied and limited to section 4 of the Tax Law. And so we held inferentially in Matter of Thrall ( 157 N. Y. 46 ). There the question was whether a bequest by will to a municipal corporation ivas subject to the transfer tax, and we held that it was not because its property held for a public use within the corporate limits ivas exempt by law from taxation and, that being so, section 220 did not impose a transfer tax upon it.

The argument that the result is an inequitable one cannot be ansAvered, but the responsibility for it rests with the legislature, not Avith the courts, for the latter must read a statute, clear and precise in its terms as this one is/ as they find it and not add to or take from it for the purpose of curing a supposed blunder of the legislature. (Johnson v. Hudson River R. R. Co., 49 N. Y. 462 .)

The order should be affirmed, with costs.

Bartlett, Martin and Vann, JJ., concur with'LANDON, J.: O’Brien and Haight, JJ., concur with Parker. Oh. J.