and said treasurer or comptroller shall give, and every executor, administrator or trustee shall take duplicate receipts from him of such payment, one of which he shall immediately send to the comptroller of the state, whose duty it shall be to charge the treasurer or comptroller so receiving the tax with the amount thereof and to seal said receipt with the seal of his office and countersign the same and return it to the executor, administrator or trustee, whereupon it shall be a proper voucher in the settlement of his accounts; but no executor, administrator or trustee shall be entitled to a final accounting of an estate in settlement of which a tax is due under the provisions of this act unless he shall produce a receipt so sealed and countersigned by the comptroller or a copy thereof certified by him, or unless a bond shall have been filed as prescribed by section two hundred and twenty-six of this chapter. All taxes imposed by this article shall be due and payable at the time of the transfer; provided, however, that taxes upon the transfer of any estate, property or interest therein limited, conditioned, dependent or determinable upon the happening of any contingency or future event by reason of which the fair market value thereof can not be ascertained at the time of the transfer as herein provided shall accrue and become due and payable when the persons or corporations beneficially entitled thereto shall come into actual possession or enjoyment thereof.

§ 223. Discount, interest and penalty.—If such tax is paid within six months from the accruing thereof, a discount of five per centum shall be allowed and deducted therefrom. If such tax is not paid within eighteen months from the accruing thereof, interest shall be charged and collected thereon at the rate of ten per centum per annum from the time the tax accrued; unless by reasons of claims made upon the estate, necessary litigation or other unavoidable cause of delay, such tax can not be determined and paid as herein provided, in which case interest at the rate of six per centum per annum shall be charged upon such tax from the accrual thereof until the cause of such delay is removed, after

which ten per centum shall be charged. In all cases when a bond shall be given under the provisions of section two hundred and twenty-six of this chapter, interest shall be charged at the rate of six per centum from the accrual of the tax until the date of payment thereof.

§ 224. Collection of tax by executors, administrators and trustees. Every executor, administrator or trustee, shall have full power to sell so much of the property of the decedent as will enable him to pay such tax in the same manner as he might be entitled by law to do for the payment of the debts of the testator or intestate. Any such administrator, executor or trustee having in charge or in trust any legacy or property for distribution subject to such tax shall deduct the tax therefrom; and within thirty days therefrom shall pay over the same to the county treasury or comptroller, as herein provided. If such legacy or property be not in money, he shall collect the tax thereon upon the appraised value thereof from the person entitled thereto. He shall not deliver or be compelled to deliver any specific legacy or property subject to tax under this article to any person until he shall have collected the tax thereon. If any such legacy shall be charged upon or payable out of real property, the heir or devisee shall deduct such tax therefrom and pay it to the administrator, executor or trustee, and the tax shall remain a lien or charge on such real property until paid, and the payment thereof shall be enforced by the executor, administrator or trustee in the same manner that payment of the legacy might be enforced, or by the district attorney under section two hundred and thirty-five of this chapter. If any such legacy shall be given in money to any such person for a limited period, the administrator, executor or trustee shall retain the tax upon the whole amount, but if it be not in money, he shall make application to the court having jurisdiction of an accounting by him, to make an apportionment, if the case require it, of the sum to be paid into his hands by such legatees, and for such further order relative thereto as the case may require.

§ 225. Refund of tax erroneously paid.-If any debts shall be proven against the estate of a decedent after the payment of any legacy or distributive share thereof, from which any such tax has been deducted or upon which it has been paid by the person entitled to such legacy or distributive share and such person is required to refund the amount of such debts or any part thereof, an equitable proportion of the tax shall be repaid to him by the executor, administrator or trustee, if the tax has not been paid to the county treasurer, comptroller of the city of New York, or to the state treasurer, or by such treasurer, comptroller or state treasurer, if such tax has been paid to him. When any amount of said tax shall have been paid erroneously into the state treasury, it shall be lawful for the comptroller of this state, upon satisfactory proof presented to him of the facts, to require the amount of such erroneous or illegal payment to be refunded to the executor, administrator, trustee, person or persons who have paid any such tax in error, from the treasury; or the said comptroller may, by order, direct and allow the treasurer of any county or the comptroller of the city of New York to refund the amount of any illegal or erroneous payment of such tax out of the funds in his hands or custody, to the credit of such taxes, and credit himself with the same in his quarterly account rendered to the comptroller of this state under this article; provided, however, that all applications for such refunding of erroneous taxes shall be made within five years from the payment thereof.

§ 226. Deferred payment.-Any person or corporation beneficially interested in any property chargeable with a tax under this article, and executors, administrators and trustees thereof may elect within one year from the date of the transfer thereof, as herein provided, not to pay such tax until the person or persons beneficially interested therein shall come into the actual possession or enjoyment thereof. If it be personal property, the person or persons so electing shall give a bond to the state in penalty of three times the amount of any such tax, with such sureties as the surrogate of the proper county may approve, conditioned

for the payment of such tax and interest thereon, at such time or period as the person or persons beneficially interested therein may come into the actual possession or enjoyment of such property, which bond shall be filed in the office of the surrogate. Such bond must be executed and filed and a full return of such property upon oath made to the surrogate within one year from the date of transfer thereof as herein provided, and such bond must be renewed every five years.

§ 227. Taxes upon devises and bequests in lieu of commissions.If a testator bequeaths or devises property to one or more executors or trustees in lieu of their commissions or allowances, or makes them his legatees to an amount exceeding the commissions or allowances prescribed by law for an executor or trustee, the excess in value of the property so bequeathed or devised, above the amount of commissions or allowances prescribed by law in similar cases shall be taxable under this article.

§ 228. Liability of certain corporations to tax.- If a foreign executor, administrator or trustee shall assign or transfer any stock or obligations in this state standing in the name of a decedent, or in trust for a decedent, liable to any such tax, the tax shall be paid to the treasurer of the proper county or the comptroller of the city of New York on the transfer thereof. No safe deposit company, bank or other institution, person or persons holding securities or assets of a decedent, shall deliver or transfer the same to the executors, administrators or legal representatives of said decedent unless notice of the time and place of such intended transfer be served upon the county treasurer or comptroller at least five days prior to the said transfer. And it shall be lawful for the said county treasurer or comptroller, personally or by representative, to examine said securities or assets at the time of such delivery or transfer. Failure to serve such notice or to allow such examination shall render said safe deposit company, trust company, bank or other institution, person or persons liable to the payment of the tax due upon said securities or assets in pursuance of the provisions of this article.

§ 229. Jurisdiction of the surrogate.- The surrogate's court of every county of the state having jurisdiction to grant letters testamentary or of administration upon the estate of a decedent whose property is chargeable with any tax under this article, or to appoint a trustee of such estate or any part thereof, or to give ancillary letters thereon, shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine all questions arising under the provisions of this article, and to do any act in relation thereto authorized by law to be done by a surrogate in other matters or proceedings coming within his jurisdiction; and if two or more surrogate's courts shall be entitled to exercise any such jurisdiction, the surrogate first acquiring jurisdiction hereunder shall retain the same to the exclusion of every other surrogate. Every petition for ancillary letters testamentary or ancillary letters of administration made in pursuance of the provisions of article seven, title three, chapter eighteen of the code of civil procedure shall set forth the name of the county treasurer or comptroller as a person to be cited as therein prescribed, and a true and correct statement of all the decedent's property in this state and the value thereof; and upon the presentation thereof the surrogate shall issue a citation directed to such county treasurer or comptroller; and upon the return of the citation the surrogate shall determine the amount of the tax which may be or become due under the provisions of this article and his decree awarding the letters may contain any provision for the payment of such tax or the giving of security therefor which might be made by such surrogate if the county treasurer or comptroller were a creditor of the decedent.

§ 230. Appointment of appraisers. The surrogate, upon the application of any interested party, including county treasurers, or the comptroller of New York city, or upon his own motion, shall, as often as and whenever occasion may require, appoint a competent person as appraiser, to fix the fair market value, at the time of the transfer thereof of property of persons whose estates shall be subject to the payment of any tax imposed by this article. If the property upon the transfer of which a tax is imposed shall