In re the Collateral Inheritance & Legacy Tax on the Estate of Capron

Majority

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In the Matter of the Collateral Inheritance and Legacy Tax on the Estate of Helen Capron, Deceased.

(Surrogate’s Court, Orange County,

Filed March 11, 1890.)

Headnote

Collateral inheritance tax—Parent and child—When relation exists.

Testatrix gave the residue of her estate to four step-daughters. When she married their father, thirty-five years before, one of the daughters was married and had left home; the others were from nine to twenty-two years of age and remained with testatrix until they married. Testatrix looked after their education, training, etc., and spoke of them as her children and they called her mother, and their friendly relations and interest continued until her death. Held, that the relation of parent and child existed between testatrix and the three younger children, and that they were exempt from the tax on their shares.

Proceedings to collect collateral inheritance tax.

J. G. Graham, for executrix.

The testatrix died September 17, 1888, and by her will, after giving a number of specific legacies of small value, gave all the residue of her property to four daughters of her deceased husband by a former wife. At the time of her marriage-to the father of these legatees, some thirty-five years ago, the youngest of them was nine, the next older sixteen, and a third twenty-two years of age. These three remained at home with their father and step-mother until their respective marriages. The fourth daughter had married and left home before the marriage of testatrix. While the three younger daughters remained at home the

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testatrix looked after their education, training, deportment and clothing. She gave them the care and protection of a mother and they recognized her right to do so and always addressed her as mother and she spoke of them as her children. After their marriage the same friendly relations and manner of address continued so far as they could under their changed circumstances. She did not, however, contribute towards their support except in the matter of care of themselves and their clothing.

The question now arises whether the testatrix “ for not less than ten years prior to her death stood in the mutually recognized relation of a parent” to these legatees, so as to bring them within the class excepted from taxation. A step parent does not necessarily stand in the relation of a parent within the meaning of this act, to step children: whether they do or not depends on the circumstances of each case.

I think in order to constitute this relation sometime during the continuance of the intercourse between the persons there should be a period of dependence on the part of the younger, a time when the younger required and received parental care, though not necessarily a dependence for support and maintenance, for this the natural mother does not generally provide. This relation must therefore begin in youth, though not of necessity during legal minority, and it should not be confounded with relations which, growing out of mutual needs or wishes, have resulted in warmest friendships and sometimes in forming a household, but one in which the parental element is lacking. I find parties in seeking exemption from this tax frequently mistake this latter relation for the parental one.

It often happens, indeed it is usually the case, that in after years, as the children grow to womanhood and manhood, they separate from their parents and establish homes of their own ; but they are no less parents and children; so too, this relation may continue between persons who have come by force of circumstances to occupy that relation, even after they have discontinued living together. In this case the testatrix and these legatees continued their interest in each other till her death, frequently visiting each other, continuing their previous style of address, they, in time, coming to care for her comfort and when she dies they become her chief legatees.

From these observations it results and I therefore conclude that the testatrix did not stand in the relation of a parent to the oldest of the four legatees, the one who had married and left home before her father’s marriage, but that she did so to the other three.