Felix Frankfurter

“ It is enough that one person acquires economic interests in property through the death of another person, even though such acquisition is in part the automatic consequence of death or related to the decedent merely because of his power to designate to whom and in what proportions among a restricted class the benefits shall fall. ”

“ This broader base is emphasized, for instance, by the fact that in the Porter case the decedent had divested himself of all 'beneficial interest' in the trust property prior to the passage of the taxing act by which the trust was included in the value of his gross estate.
A person may by his death bring into being greater interests in property than he himself has ever enjoyed, and the state may turn advantages thus realized into a source of revenue, as illustrated by earlier cases dealing with special powers of appointment that also came here from New York. ”

“ Differences in circumstances beget appropriate differences in law. The Equal Protection Clause was not designed to compel uniformity in the face of difference. Madden, Jr. v. Kentucky, 309 U.S. 83, 60 S.Ct. ”

“ The contested statute, New York Laws of 1932, ch. 320, derives meaning as an incident in the history of New York's present system of death taxes. That system had its beginning in 1885. The original act taxed individual economic benefits derived upon death rather than the total amount of the estate. Laws of 1885, ch. 483. Under this legislation, the transmission of property subject to powers of appointment, either general or special, was attributed to the estate of the donor. Matter of Stewart, 131 N.Y. 274, 30 N.E. 184, 14 L.R.A. 836; and the subsequent exercise of the power was not taxed. ”

“ In the circumstances confronting the New York Legislature, as the Court of Appeals pointed out, the discrimination affecting special powers was not based upon what was deemed in the Binney case to be a date 'arbitrarily selected but is a logical solution by the Legislature of a problem which it was required to meet'. In re Vanderbilt's Estate, 281 N.Y. 297, at page 317, 22 N.E.2d 379, 391. All special powers, whether created before or after 1930, are taxed in New York. In one case, they are taxed to the donor's estate ”