Carter

This is a writ of error to review a judgment in favor of the defendant in error and against the plaintiff in error. The agreed facts are as follows:

Charles L. Ames died on February 24, 1915, leaving a will executed on June 19, 1909. In the will he devised all his property, real, personal, and mixed, in fee-simple title and wheresoever situated, to his wife, Annie B. Ames, and to his daughter, Edith Ames English (defendant in error here), “to be held by them as joint tenants and not as tenants in common, to them and the survivors of them and the heirs of such survivors forever.” Annie B. Ames, the wife, died on May 15, 1918. Federal estate taxes on one-half the value of the joint estate were assessed against the gross estate of Annie B. Ames. The executrix paid the tax under protest and brought this action to recover.

Section 201 of the Revenue Act of September 8, 1916 (Estate Tax Act, 39 Stat. 777 [Comp. St. §§ 6336½b, 6336½c]), provides:

Section 202 provides:

Stated in a short way, the position of the government is that, under the pertinent sections, the tax is an excise and of a class of indirect taxes known as death duties, which may be imposed either with respect to the…