Harlan F. Stone

“ The present tax is not laid on the donor, but on the beneficiary; the gift taxed is not one long since completed, but one which never passed to the beneficiaries beyond recall until the death of the donor; and the value of the gift at that operative moment, rather than at some later date, is the basis of the tax.
So long as the privilege of succession has not been fully exercised it may be reached by the tax. ”

“ And so the property passing to the beneficiaries here was acquired only because of default in the exercise of the power during the donor's life and thus was on his death subject to the state's power to tax as an inheritance.
Without considering the other statutes involved, we need not go further than to say that the statute of 1909, imposing the tax because of the failure to exercise the power of appointment, does not deprive plaintiffs in error of their property without due process of law. ”

“ Mass. 1909, c. 527, § 8, and that the nonexercise of the reserved power in Brooks' lifetime as well as the fact that the interest of the beneficiaries took effect 'in possession or enjoyment' after his death within the meaning of St. Mass. 1916, c. 268, § 1, required the imposition of the tax as of the date of his death upon the entire interest in the trust passing to the plaintiffs in error. This construction of the statutes by the state court we accept, Stebbins v. ”