he justification of their power to levy such taxes,
States have consistently found themselves restricted by the rule,
established as to property taxes in 1905 in Union Refrigerator Transit
Co. _v._ Kentucky,[515] and subsequently reiterated in Frick _v._
Pennsylvania[516] in 1925, which precludes imposition of transfer taxes
upon tangible personal property by any State other than the one in which
such tangibles are permanently located or have an actual situs. In the
case of intangibles, however, the States have been harassed by the
indecision of the Supreme Court; for to an even greater extent than is
discernible in its treatment of property taxes on intangibles, it has
oscillated in upholding, then rejecting, and again currently sustaining
the levy by more than one State of death taxes upon intangibles
comprising the estate of a decedent.

Until 1930, transfer taxes upon intangibles levied by both the
domiciliary as well as nondomiciliary, or situs State, were with rare
exceptions approved. Thus, in Bullen _v._ Wisconsin,[517] the
domiciliary State of the creator of a trust was held competent to levy
an inheritance tax, upon the death of the settlor, on his trust fund
consisting of stocks, bonds, and notes kept and administered in another
State and as to which the settlor reserved the right to control
disposition and to direct payment of income for life, such reserved
powers being equivalent to a fee. Cognizance was taken of the fact that
the State in which these intangibles had their situs had also taxed the
trust. Levy of an inheritance tax by a nondomiciliary State was
sustained on similar grounds in Wheeler _v._ Sohmer, wherein it was held
that the presence of a negotiable instrument was sufficient to confer
jurisdiction upon the State seeking to tax its transfer.[518] On the
other hand, the mere ownership by a foreign corporation of property in a
nondomiciliary State was held insufficient to support a tax by that
State on the succession to shares of stock in that corporation owned by
a nonresident decedent.[519] Also against the trend was Blodgett _v._
Silberman[520] wherein the Court defeated collection of a transfer tax
by the domiciliary State by treating coins and bank notes deposited by a
decedent in a safe deposit box in another State as tangible property,
albeit it conceded that the domiciliary State could tax the transfer of
books and certificates of indebtedness found in that safe deposit box as
well as t