Rosenfeld

On the former trial this court held that the interests upon which the tax was assessed and collected were entirely contingent, beneficial interests, not vested in possession and enjoyment, and hence, under the doctrine of Vanderbilt v. Eidman, 196 U. S. 480 , 25 Sup. Ct. 331, 49 L. Ed. 563 , and other cases following it, were not subject to tax under the War Revenue Act, and that the tax was illegal and void. Judgment was accordingly given for the recovery of the entire tax. The Circuit Court of Appeals, while sustaining the view of this court that the corpus of the legacies under the will of John Rosenfeld had not vested at the time of assessment, and were not subject to the tax in gross, held that, under the principle announced in the later case of United States v. Fidelity Trust Co., 222 U. S. 158 , 32 Sup. Ct. 59, 56 L. Ed. 137 (decided pending the appeal), the rights given the beneficiaries by the will to receive the income of the legacies “were rights which were vested at the time of the assessments which were made thereon and were subject to tire war revenue tax, and assessable, not upon the gross amount of the legacy, but upon the vdlue of the rights to receive the annual…