Morrison Waite

“ The last-named act simply provides that when for a failure to pay a tax at the time and in the manner provided by law a penalty of ten per cent additional upon the amount of the tax so due and unpaid had been exacted, the person or persons so failing or neglecting to pay the tax, instead of paying ten per cent, should pay five per cent and interest at the rate of one per cent a month. ”

“ Penalties are never extended by implication. They must be expressly imposed or they cannot be enforced. Full power is given in sect. 122, by reference to the other provisions of the internal-revenue law, for the collection of the tax and penalty there provided for; but it nowhere appears, by reference or otherwise, that it was the intention of Congress to add to the one penalty which is expressly given for the failure to do what that section requires. As has been said, it is conceded that the addition of five per cent and interest provided for in sect. 119 applies only to individual incomes. ”

“ The sections of the other acts referred to were evidently intended to apply to taxes and duties included in the regular annual and monthly lists required by law to be made out and placed in the hands of collectors, and not to the taxes on interest and dividends collected through or from the corporations, under the provisions of sect. ”