Terms Used In Michigan Laws > Chapter 205 > Act 188 of 1899 > DEFINITIONS

• Affidavit: A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.
• Agricultural use: means property that is substantially devoted to the production of plants and animals useful to people, including forages and sod crops; grains and feed crops; dairy and dairy products; poultry; livestock, including breeding and grazing; fish; timber; fruits; vegetables; flowers; Christmas trees; plants or trees grown in an agricultural nursery; and other similar uses and activities. See Michigan Laws 205.221
• Allegation: something that someone says happened.
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Bequest: Property gifted by will.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Decedent: means a deceased person and includes, but is not limited to, a testator, grantor, bargainor, vendor, donor, or person who dies intestate. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Department: means the bureau of revenue of the department of treasury. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Devise: To gift property by will.
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Federal generation-skipping transfer tax: means the tax imposed by chapter 13 of subtitle B of the internal revenue code. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Federal return: means any United States transfer tax return including federal estate tax returns and generation-skipping tax returns unless the context indicates a similar Michigan tax return. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Generation-skipping transfer: means every transfer subject to the federal generation-skipping transfer tax in which the original transferor is a resident of this state at the date of the transfer by the original transferor or the property transferred is real or personal property situated in this state. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
• grantor: may be construed as including every person from or by whom any estate in lands passes in or by any deed. See Michigan Laws 8.3e
• Gross estate: means the gross estate determined under the internal revenue code. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• 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.
• in writing: shall be construed to include printing, engraving, and lithographing; except that if the written signature of a person is required by law, the signature shall be the proper handwriting of the person or, if the person is unable to write, the person's proper mark, which may be, unless otherwise expressly prohibited by law, a clear and classifiable fingerprint of the person made with ink or another substance. See Michigan Laws 8.3q
• Intangible personal property: means incorporeal personal property including, but not limited to, deposits in banks, negotiable instruments, mortgages, debts, receivables, shares of stock, bonds, notes, credits, evidences of an interest in property, evidences of debt, and choses in action generally. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Internal revenue code: means the United States internal revenue code of 1986, in effect on January 1, 1998 or, at the option of the personal representative, in effect on the date of the decedent's death. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Intestate: Dying without leaving a will.
• Joint session: When both chambers of a legislature adopt a concurrent resolution to meet together.
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Legacy: A gift of property made by will.
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Lineal descendant: Direct descendant of the same ancestors.
• month: means a calendar month; the word "year" a calendar year; and the word "year" alone shall be equivalent to the words "year of our Lord". See Michigan Laws 8.3j
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
• Mortgagor: The person who pledges property to a creditor as collateral for a loan and who receives the money.
• Nonresident: means an individual who is not a resident. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Original transferor: means any grantor, donor, trustor, testator, or person who by grant, gift, trust, will, or otherwise, makes a transfer of real or personal property that results in a federal generation-skipping transfer tax. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• person: may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate, as well as to individuals. See Michigan Laws 8.3l
• Person: means an individual, firm, partnership, joint venture, association, corporation, limited liability company, company, estate, or any other group or combination acting as a unit. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Personal representative: means the personal representative appointed by the probate court, including an independent personal representative, or, if a personal representative is not acting, then any person who is in the actual or constructive possession of any property included in the gross estate of the decedent or any other person who is required to file a return or pay the taxes due under any provision of this act. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Probate: Proving a will
• property: means the property or interest in property of the testator, intestate, grantor, bargainor, or vendor, passing or transferred to those not specifically exempted from this act, and not as the property or interest in property passing or transferred to the individual legatees, devisees, heirs, next of kin, grantees, donees, or vendees, and includes all property or interest in property whether situated within or without this state and including all property represented or evidenced by note, certificate, stock, land, contract, mortgage or other kind or character of evidence thereof, and regardless of whether that evidence of property is owned, kept or possessed within or without this state. See Michigan Laws 205.221
• prosecuting attorney: means the county treasurer or prosecuting attorney of the county having jurisdiction pursuant to section 10. See Michigan Laws 205.221
• Qualified heir: means an individual entitled to any beneficial interest in property who is the grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, husband, wife, child, legally adopted child, stepchild, brother, sister, wife or widow of a son, or husband or widower of a daughter of the decedent grantor, donor, or vendor, or for the use of a person to whom the decedent grantor, donor, or vendor stood in the mutually acknowledged relation of a parent, if the relationship began at or before the child's seventeenth birthday and continued until the death of the decedent grantor, donor, or vendor, or to or for the use of a lineal descendant of or a lineal descendant of a stepchild of the decedent grantor, donor, or vendor, or farm business partner, or to or for the use of any person to whom the decedent grantor, donor, or vendor stood in the mutually acknowledged relation of a farm business partner. See Michigan Laws 205.221
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Resident: means that term as defined in section 18 of the income tax act of 1967, 1967 PA 281, MCL 206. See Michigan Laws 205.256
• Right of survivorship: The ownership rights that result in the acquisition of title to property by reason of having survived other co-owners.
• seal: shall be construed to include any of the following: