Chambers

This is an appeal from a judgment declaring that certain foreign corporations, to wit, Princeton University, Cheshire Public Library, and Cheshire Cemetery, all existing for nonprofit purposes, are exempt from paying an inheritance tax upon the property left to them by the will of the decedent. The facts .are stipulated, and the only question is whether, under the inheritance tax law of 1915, (Stats. 1915, p. 421), such foreign corporations are exempt from the payment of the tax. That statute, subdivision 1, section 7, reads as follows:

It is difficult to conceive of any language by which a more direct exemption could be made. Authorities are cited from other states wherein exemptions of charitable corporations have been held, under the language of the particular statute construed, to apply only to domestic charitable corporations. Our attention is not called to any law which is as broad and comprehensive in its scheme of exemption as our statute. If this statute simply read: “All property transferred to corporations and institutions now or hereafter exempted by law from taxation,” it might very well be argued, as it was in the eases in question, that the exemption “law” referred…