th Amendment.[451]

Public Purpose

Inasmuch as public moneys cannot be expended for other than public
purposes, it follows that an exercise of the taxing power for merely
private purposes is beyond the authority of the States.[452] Whether a
use is public or private is ultimately a judicial question, however, and
in the determination thereof the Court will be influenced by local
conditions and by the judgments of State tribunals as to what are to be
deemed public uses in any State.[453] Taxes levied for each of the
following listed purposes have been held to be for a public use: city
coal and fuel yard,[454] State bank, warehouse, elevator, flour-mill
system, and homebuilding projects,[455] society for preventing cruelty
to animals (dog license tax),[456] railroad tunnel,[457] books for
school children attending private as well as public schools,[458] and
relief of unemployment.[459]

Other Considerations Affecting Validity: Excessive Burden; Ratio of
Amount to Benefit Received

When the power to tax exists, the extent of the burden is a matter for
the discretion of the lawmakers;[460] and the Court will refrain from
condemning a tax solely on the ground that it is excessive.[461] Nor can
the constitutionality of the power to levy taxes be made to depend upon
the taxpayer's enjoyment of any special benefit from use of the funds
raised by taxation.[462]

Estate, Gift, and Inheritance Taxes

The power of testamentary disposition and the privilege of inheritance
being legitimate subjects of taxation, a State may apply its inheritance
tax to either the transmission, or the exercise of the legal power of
transmission, of property by will or descent, or to the legal privilege
of taking property by devise or descent.[463] Accordingly, an
inheritance tax law, enacted after the death of a testator, but before
the distribution of his estate, constitutionally may be imposed on the
shares of legatees, notwithstanding that under the law of the State in
effect on the date of such enactment, ownership of the property passed
to the legatees upon the testator's death.[464] Equally consistent with
due process is a tax on an _inter vivos_ transfer of property by deed
intended to take effect upon the death of the grantor.[465]

The due process clause places no restriction on a State as to the time
at which an inheritance tax shall be levied or the property valued for
purposes of such a tax; and for that reason a graduated ta