Estate of Bowditch

The administratrix with the will annexed of the estate of Charlotte Bowditch, deceased, and certain legatees and devisees under said will, appeal from an order decreeing, among other things, that an inheritance or succession tax be paid on account of the purported transfer under said will of certain personal property valued at $299,260.66. The uncontradieted material facts pertinent to the point presented on the appeal are these:

The order from which the present appeal is taken decrees that the transfers of the said trust property to the persons named in the will of Charlotte Bowditch are taxable under subdivision 6 of section 2 of the California Inheritance Act of 1917 (Stats. 1917, p. 880), which provides, in part, that “Whenever any person, trustee or corporation shall exercise a power of appointment derived from any disposition of property made either before or after the passage of this Act, such appointment, when made, shall be deemed a transfer taxable under the provisions of this Act, in the same manner as though the property to which such appointment relates belonged absolutely to the donee of such power, and had been bequeathed or devised by such donee by will.” It is…