270 WILLIAMS' CASE.—3 BLAND.

State. Gibbon's Decl. and Fall Bom. Emp. ch. 6. The British gov-
ernment has imposed a similar duty on legacies and shares of per-
sonal estate. The adjustment and imposition of which tax upon
all subjects of testamentary donation, susceptible of being in-
spected, handled and valued, could give rise to no difficulty. But
it is otherwise as to the valuation of a legacy given by way of an-
nuity for life, which involves a consideration of the expectation
of the life during which it is given. And therefore, as to such
cases, the British statute has laid down certain rules by which the
present value of such legacies given by way of life annuities might
be calculated and ascertained, upon which present value the tax is
to be imposed; 36 Geo. 3, c. 52; 55 Geo. 3, c. 184; Matthews on
Executors, 193, and App. E; Ram. on Assets, 251.

This direction of the Declaration of Rights of Maryland, that
every person ought to contribute his proportion of public taxes
according to his actual worth in property, must be extended to all
limited and life interests in property as well as to all absolute and
unlimited estates: and therefore here, as under the British statute,
to impose a tax in due proportion it becomes necessary, in like
manner to ascertain the present value of all life interests which
may be made the subject of taxation. It would seem, that this
rule has been taken from the most approved writers on political
economy; according to whom, as we have seen, the contribution
of each citizen should be in proportion to his abilities; that is, in
proportion to the revenue which he enjoys under the protection of the
State. If this be the true meaning of this constitutional rule then
he alone, who draws a re venue from his property, or has the present
command of its profits, can be made to pay a tax upon it. A naked
reversioner or remainderman cannot be taxed, as he not
260 *only then draws no revenue from such property; but from the
nature of his estate, he may never have it in his power to derive
any profit whatever from it. But if, on the other hand, by the
expression, "according to his actual worth in property,'' it was
intended, that the contribution should be according to the capital
value of property of all desciptions, without regard to any present
profit which its owner might derive from it; then it would seem,
that as a naked unproductive reversion or remainder it must be re-
garded as property, as well as the highly profitable life estate upon
which it depends, the owner of each interest must be made to con-
tribute according to his actual worth in each of these kinds ot
property; and, that as the two estates together are no more than
equal to a fee simple, so the tax upon each should be apportioned
between the two, so as to be no more than equivalent to a tax
upon the whole estate, if held altogether by one and the same
owner.

The first General Assembly, convened under the Constitution,
in an Act, the general frame of which seems to have been taken