Harlan F. Stone

“ The subject of the tax is not alone the transfer of ownership in shares of stock. It embraces transfers of rights to subscribe for or receive shares or certificates whether made upon the books of the corporation 'or by any paper, agreement, or memorandum or other evidence of transfer. * * *' In the present case the generating source of the right to receive the newly issued shares of petitioner was the conveyance to it of the property of each of the corporations to be consolidated. ”

“ It is enough if the right or interest transferred is, by any form of procedure, relinquished by one and vested in another. Even the ownership of a share of stock, transfer of which is admittedly taxed, is not transferred directly from one to another as is title to a chattel or to real estate. Transfer of title to the shares is effected by a form of novation by which the right of the shareholder is surrendered to the corporation in return for its recognition of a new shareholder designated by the transferor and the issue to him of a new certificate of stock. ”

“ But we do not discern even a technical difference of any significance between such a transaction and that now before us, where the same duty to issue the stock is created and the same shift of the beneficiaries of it is effected simultaneously in a single document. No convincing reason is suggested why the act should be thought to tax the one and not the other. ”