Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 2901 – Proration of state and federal estate taxes; method
(a) Whenever it appears upon any accounting or in any appropriate action or proceeding that an executor, administrator, temporary administrator, trustee or other person acting in a fiduciary capacity (or individually) has, after April 2, 1947, paid an estate tax levied or assessed under Chapter 15 of Title 30 providing for a tax known as “Delaware Estate Tax” or under any law amendatory thereof or supplemental thereto or under any other law hereafter enacted providing for the same or a different estate tax or under any estate tax law of the United States, upon or with respect to any property required to be included in the gross estate of a decedent under any such law, the amount of the tax so paid shall be equitably prorated among the persons interested in the estate to whom such property is or may be transferred or to whom any benefit accrues.
Terms Used In Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 2901
- Decedent: A deceased person.
- Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
- Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
- Gross estate: The total fair market value of all property and property interests, real and personal, tangible and intangible, of which a decedent had beneficial ownership at the time of death before subtractions for deductions, debts, administrative expenses, and casualty losses suffered during estate administration.
- Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
- State: means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, a federally recognized Indian tribe, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. See Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 39A-101
- Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
- United States: includes its territories and possessions and the District of Columbia. See Delaware Code Title 1 Sec. 302
(b) Such proration shall be made in the proportion, as near as may be, that the value of the property, interest or benefit of each such person bears to the total value of the property, interests and benefits received by all such persons interested in the estate except that in making such proration allowances shall be made for any exemptions granted by the law imposing the tax and for any deductions allowed by such law for the purpose of arriving at the value of the net estate and except that in cases where a trust is created or other provision made whereby any person is given an interest in income or an estate for years or for life or other temporary interest in any property or fund, the tax on both such temporary interest and on the remainder thereafter shall be charged against and be paid out of the corpus of such property or fund without apportionment between remainders and temporary estates.
(c) For the purposes of this chapter the term “persons interested in the estate” shall with respect to both state and federal taxes include all persons who may be entitled to receive or who have received any property or interest which is required to be included in the gross estate of a decedent or any benefit whatsoever with respect to any such property or interest, whether under a will or intestacy or by reason of any transfer, trust, estate, interest, right, power or relinquishment of power taxable under any of the aforementioned laws providing for the levy or assessment of estate taxes.
46 Del. Laws, c. 119, § ?1; 47 Del. Laws, c. 405, § ?1; 12 Del. C. 1953, § ?2901;