Howell Edmunds Jackson

“ The value of land depends largely upon the use to which it can be put, and the character of the improvements upon it. The assessable value, for taxation, of a railroad track can only be determined by looking at the elements on which the financial condition of the company depends, its traffic, as evidenced by the rolling stock and gross earnings in connection with its capital stock. ”

“ In other words, the question is whether the railroad company has any constitutional right to have its transitory property assessed for taxation alone in Muscogee county, and whether the distribution among the several counties of such property is such a discrimination against the railroad as denies to it the equal protection of the laws?
This is hardly an open question. Various modes of taxing railroad property are adopted by the different states. In some, railroad companies are taxed upon their property as a unit; in others, the road and the property in each county are separately assessed ”

“ The roadway itself of a railroad depends for its value upon the traffic of the company, and not merely upon the narrow strip of land appropriated for the use of the road, and the bars and cross-ties thereon. ”

“ The notion of the situs of personal property following the personal residence of the corporation is a legal fiction, but is not an unbending and uncontrollable principle of law. It may be nodified by the legislature. The rolling stock of a railroad company has no more local existence in one county than another. ”

“ We have shown that in each county its rate of taxation is applied to the property of the railroad actually located therein, and that it is perfectly just and proper to distribute the unlocated personalty of the road for taxing purposes in fair proportion among the several counties, the corporations residing sub modo in all the counties along its line of road, and therefore in one as much as in another. ”

“ Indeed, under this law these corporations have one advantage over other taxpayers. Returns made to tax receivers are overlooked by the grand juries, and a system is provided for increasing the valuation of a taxpayer's property when he undervalues it. ”

“ This machinery by which the road is operated is constantly passing from one terminus to the other of the entire road, and, to save all cavil and dispute in respect to it, it was perfectly competent for the legislature to say that it should become a part of the road itself, and become property the same as the road ”

“ The value of the roadway at any given time is not the original cost, nor, a fortiori, its ultimate cost after years of expenditure in repairs and improvements. On the other hand, its value cannot be determined by ascertaining the value of the land included in the road assessed at the market price of adjacent lands, and adding the value of the cross-ties, rails, and spikes. ”

“ The tax rate upon the property thus assessed, as stated in the notice of the comptroller general, was different in the different counties. For Muscogee county it was 2 1/2 mills, for Chattahoochee it was 8 mills, for Stewart it was 5 mills, for Terrell it was 5.34 mills, and for Webster county it was 3.47 mills; these rates of taxation being imposed by the respective counties on other property situate therein and subject to taxation. ”

“ The choses in action of a corporation, its rolling stock, and personal property, according to the principles of the common law, have their situs at the domicile or place of business of the company. Mayor, etc., of Gallatin v. ”