Harlan F. Stone

“ It is suggested that the schemes of graduation and exemption in the present statute, by which the tax levied upon donors of the same total amounts may be affected by the size of the gifts to individual donees, are so arbitrary and unreasonable as to deprive the taxpayer of property without due process. ”

“ It is a tax laid only upon the exercise of a single one of those powers incident to ownership, the power to give the property owned to another. Under this statute all the other rights and powers which collectively constitute property or ownership may be fully enjoyed free of the tax. ”

“ There it was held that a tax levied upon a sale of property effected at a board of trade or exchange was an excise laid upon the privilege, opportunity, or facility afforded by boards of trade or exchanges for the transaction of the business and not upon the property or the sale thereof, which, it was conceded, would be a direct tax and void without apportionment. ”

“ The uniformity of taxation throughout the United States enjoined by article 1, § 8, is geographic, not intrinsic. A graduated tax, on legacies, granting exemptions, Knowlton v. Moore, supra, or on incomes, Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. R., 240 U.S. 1, 36 S.C.t. 236, 60 L. Ed. 493, L. R. A. 1917D, 414, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 713, does not violate this clause of the Constitution, nor are such taxes infringements on the Fifth Amendment. ”

“ Ames, 173 U.S. 509, 515, 19 S.C.t. 522, 43 L. Ed. 786, that no useful purpose would be served by renewing the discussion here. Whatever may be the precise line which sets off direct taxes from others, we need not now determine. ”