In Re Estate of Claeyssens

Edmund G. Brown Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior

Assistant Attorney General, Susan K. Leach, Deputy Attorney General, for Objector and Respondent State of California.

Stephen Shane Start, County Counsel, Count of Santa Barbara and Stephen D. Underwood, Chief Assistant County Counsel, for Objector and Respondent County of Santa Barbara.

YEGAN, J.

This appeal is about an estate or inheritance tax masquerading as a graduated probate court user or filing fee (hereafter, the fee). Noelle Claeyssens Burkey, executrix of the Estate of Pierre P. Claeyssens, appeals from an order denying her petition to refund a $74,411.52 fee imposed pursuant to Government Code sections 26827 and 68087. To the extent that these statutes authorize the fee, they were enacted in violation of the state constitution and are of no force or effect. Proposition 6 (Rev. and Tax.Code § 13301), coupled with the California Constitution (art. II, § 10, subd. (c)), provide that the Legislature alone may not impose an estate or inheritance tax. We are compelled to reverse. [1]

Pierre P. Claeyssens died testate in 2003, naming appellant as the…