City Bank Farmers Trust Co. v. McGowan

This case presents an issue of importance arising under § 302 (c) of the Revenue Act of 1926, as amended, 1 which requires inclusion, in the gross taxable estate of a decedent, of any interest in property of which the “decedent has at any time made a transfer ... in contemplation of ... his death . . .” More specifically, the inquiry is whether the section reaches allowances out of the income of an incompetent person.

Helen Hall Vail died in 1935 intestate. For nine years she had been incurably insane. In 1926 an adjudication of incompetency was entered by the Supreme Court of the State of New…