R.I. Gen. Laws § 44-4-14: Tangible personal property in decedent’s estate.

If no executor of the will of, or no administrator of the estate of, a deceased person has been appointed, the tangible personal property of the deceased person, liable to taxation, is assessed as the estate of the deceased person, in the city or town where the deceased person resided, and the executor or administrator subsequently appointed is liable in his or her official capacity for so much of the tax proven not to be in excess of the tax upon the amount for which the estate was properly taxable.