Death & Taxes

Pittsburgh schoolchildren once used to chant: "Who made the world? God made the world. Who filled it in? Booth & Flinn." Booth & Flinn Co. did help change the face of the world. Founded in 1874, it grew into one of the biggest U.S. heavy construction firms. It built Manhattan's $23 million Holland Tunnel tubes, the Pittsburgh Liberty Tunnels, and a good part of the New York City subway system. Its annual gross averaged $4,000,000.

But when Booth & Flinn's President A. Rex Flinn died last May, the company found itself in a hole. He left his company and estate to his daughter, but not enough ready cash to pay the inheritance tax. Last week Booth & Flinn went on the block at an asking price of $3,000,000. That would just about cover the tax.

Robert Walton Goelet, who owned more Manhattan tenements and other real estate than anybody except John Jacob Astor, died in 1941 leaving his four children an estate valued at $19,579,316. Last week the executors filed a final accounting in Newport (R.I.) Probate Court. Federal and state taxes had taken $15.5 million of the estate, administrative and other fees, $1.2 million. Left for the four heirs: $2,808,615.

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