Meyer v. United States (364 U.S. 410)/Opinion of the Court

by Charles Evans Whittaker

United States Supreme Court

364 U.S. 410

Meyer  v.  United States

 Argued: Oct. 12, 1960. --- Decided: Nov 21, 1960

Petitioners, who are executors of the estate of Albert F. Meyer, brought this suit to recover an alleged overpayment of federal estate taxes and the District Court granted the relief asked. 166 F.Supp. 629. The Court of Appeals reversed, 275 F.2d 83, and we granted the executors' petition for certiorari, 361 U.S. 929, 80 S.Ct. 373, 4 L.Ed.2d 352, because of a conflict of decisions in the circuits. Cf. In re Reilly's Estate, 239 F.2d 797, decided by the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Two policies of life insurance are involved, ^[1] but since they are in all material respects identical, we need deal with only one of them. The policy obligated the insurer to pay a death benefit of $25,187.50, and that sum was included by the executors in the federal estate tax return and the tax thereon was paid. The decedent had selected an optional mode of settlement which provided for the payment of equal monthly installments to his wife for her life, with 240 installments guaranteed, and further provided that if the wife should die before receiving the 240 installments his daughter would receive the remainder of them, but if both the wife and the daughter died before receiving the 240 installments the commuted value of those unpaid was to be paid in one sum to the estate of the last one of them to die.

Of the total proceeds of the policy of $25,187.50, the insurer determined that $17,956.41 was necessary to fund the 240 monthly payments to the wife, the daughter, or to the estate of the last survivor of them, and that the remaining $7,231.09 was necessary to fund the monthly payments to the wife so long as she might live beyond the 240 months. Accordingly, the insurer made such entries on its books.

Thereafter petitioners, as executors, timely filed a claim for refund of the amount of the tax paid upon the $7,231.09 which the insurer had shown upon its books as necessary to fund the monthly payments to the wife for her actuarial expectancy beyond the 240 months certain, on the theory that the insurer's treatment of that sum on its books created a separate 'property' or fund payable to the wife alone, and hence it qualified for the marital deduction under § 812(e)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, 26 U.S.C.A. § 812(e) (1). ^[2] The claim was denied, and this suit was brought to recover the tax that had been paid on that sum.

Petitioners correctly concede that if the policy constitutes but one 'property,' within the meaning of the statute, ^[3] it would not qualify for the marital deduction because the wife's interest in it would be a 'terminable' one, within the meaning of the statute, inasmuch as the wife may die before receipt of the 240 guaranteed installments, in which event the unpaid ones must go to the daughter if then living. They concede, too, that the $17,956.41, shown on the insurer's books as necessary to fund the monthly payments for the 240 months certain, does not qualify for the marital deduction for the same reasons. But they contend that, although the policy made no provision therefor, the insurer's bookkeeping entries constituted a real division of the insurance proceeds into, and created, two 'properties'-one of $17,956.41 and the other of $7,231.09-and that the latter qualifies for the marital deduction under the statute because it is payable, if at all, only to the wife-during her lifetime beyond the 240 months-and no other person has any interest in it.

Whether a policy of life insurance may create several 'properties' or funds, either terminable or nonterminable or both, we need not decide, for we think the policy here involved constituted only one property, and made only so much of its proceeds payable to the wife as she might live to receive in equal monthly installments, and made any guaranteed balance payable to the daughter. Hence, under the terms of the policy, the 'interest passing to the surviving spouse (may) terminate or fail' and a 'person other than (the) surviving spouse * * * may possess or enjoy (a) part of such property after such termination or failure of the interest so passing to the surviving spouse; * * *.' Therefore the policy and its proceeds-considered apart from petitioners' claim that the insurer's bookkeeping division of the proceeds of the policy into two parts created two 'properties'-are disqualified for the marital deduction by the express provisions of § 812(e)(1)(B) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. The legislative history of the section further supports and compels this conclusion. Illustrating applications of the terminable interest rule, the Senate Committee Report gave an example that is in no relevant way distinguishable from this case, ^[4] and makes it very clear that the marital deduction is not allowable in the case of an annuity for the surviving spouse for life if 'upon the death of the surviving spouse, the payments are to continue to another person (not through her estate) or the undistributed fund is to be paid to such other person * * *.'

We think petitioners' argument-that the insurer's bookkeeping division of the proceeds of the policy into two parts created two properties-cannot withstand the provisions of the policy and the actual facts respecting the insurer's bookkeeping division of its proceeds, under the clear terms of the statute and its legislative history. The policy made no provision for the creation of two separate properties-one a property sufficient to provide payments for 240 months, to the wife while she lived and any remainder to the daughter, and another property sufficient to provide an annuity to the wife for the period of her actuarial expectancy beyond the 240 months-and no such separate properties were in fact created. The allocations made were merely actuarial ones-mere bookkeeping entries-made by the insurer on its own books for its own convenience after the insured, the other party to the contract, had died. The wife and the daughter were, respectively, primary and contingent beneficiaries of the policy alone. Neither of them had any title to, nor right to receive, any special fund, and indeed none was actually created. The bookkeeping entries made by the insurer no more created or measured their rights than the insurer's erasure of those entries-which it was free to make at any time-would destroy their rights. Their rights derive solely from the policy. It, not the insurer's bookkeeping entries, created and constitutes the property involved. Any action by the beneficiaries to enforce their rights against the insurer would have to be upon the policy, not upon the entries the insurer had made on its books for its own actuarial information and convenience. Nor would exhaustion of the sum of those entries constitute any defense to the insurer against the claim of either beneficiary for amounts due her under the policy.

The proceeds of the policy were not payable to the wife (or to her estate or appointee) alone and at all events, but were payable in monthly installments to her for life, and if any obligation under the policy remained undischarged at her death it was payable to the daughter if living or, if not, to the estate of the last of them to die. It follows that the 'interest passing to the surviving spouse (may) terminate or fail' and that a 'person other than (the) surviving spouse * * * may possess or enjoy (a) part of such property after such termination or failure of the interest so passing to the surviving spouse; * * *.' and hence the property is disqualified for the marital deduction by the express provisions of § 812(e)(1)(B) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice CLARK and Mr. Justice BRENNAN concur, dissenting.

Notes

1. One of the policies was issued by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company in the amount of $25,187.50, and the other was issued by John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company in the amount of $5,019.60.
2. Section 812(e) provides in relevant part:
3. 'The terms 'interest' and 'property,' as used in section 812(e) have separate and distinct meanings. The term 'property' is used in a comprehensive sense and includes all objects or rights which are susceptible of ownership. The term 'interest' refers to the extent of ownership, that is, to the estate or the quality and quantum of ownership by the surviving spouse or other person, of particular property.' S.Rep. No. 1013, Part 2, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 4.
4. 'Example (2). The decedent during his lifetime purchased an annuity contract under which the annuity was payable during his life and then to his spouse during her life if she survived him. The value of the interest of the decedent's surviving spouse in such contract at the death of the decedent is included in determining the value of his gross estate. A marital deduction is allowed with respect to the value of such interest so passing to the decedent's surviving spouse inasmuch as no other person has an interest in the contract. If upon the death of the surviving spouse the annuity payments were to continue for a term to her estate, or the undistributed portion thereof was to be paid to her estate, the deduction is nevertheless allowable with respect to such entire interest. If, however, upon the death of the surviving spouse, the payments are to continue to another person (not through her estate) or the undistributed fund is to be paid to such other person, no marital deduction is allowable inasmuch as an interest passed from the decedent to such other person.' (Emphasis added.) S.Rep. No. 1013, Part 2, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 12-13.