Bill in equity

“ This method of adjusting titles by bill in equity proved so convenient that in many of the states statutes have been passed extending the jurisdiction of a court of equity to all cases where a party in possession, and sometimes out of possession, seeks to clear up his title and remove any cloud caused by an outstanding deed or lien which he claims to be invalid, and the existence of which is a threat against his peaceable occupation of the land, and an obstacle to its sale. ”

“ That case, however, did not go upon any idea that a bill in equity would lie against a judgment debtor for a general discovery of assets, but merely upon the ground of a jurisdiction to discover and apply equitable assets specifically described ”

“ While therefore it is possible that a loan may be so proposed and accepted as to give to the intended borrower a cause of action for any failure to perform the agreement, and a right to recover damages at law, yet on a bill in the nature either of a bill for specific performance or for an equitable garnishment, the court may well inquire where is the substantial equity in the case. ”

“ It is contended that the bill should have been dismissed because of adequate remedy at law, and on the ground of laches and estoppel. As the controversy involved the question on what basis dividends should have been declared, and therein the enforcement of the administration of the trust in accordance with law, we have no doubt of the jurisdiction in equity. ”

“ The most definite and concrete form which the agitation against trusts and combines has ever assumed in this country, and the most interesting legal step the government has taken in a generation, was the filing of a bill in equity, by United States Attorney General Moody, on Nov. ”

“ But where some part of the law may be unconstitutional because of a failure to comply with some matter of detail, but the amount which the owner of the property ought to pay is perfectly clear under the provisions of law, then if the taxpayer desire to be exempted from paying more than his share, he must pay or offer to pay his proportion, before equity will aid him in his effort to escape paying a disproportionate share. ”

“ Undoubtedly, if there be a complete and adequate remedy at law in such a case as this, the remedy in equity will not be recognized. Assuming the tax to be void, equity will not restrain, by injunction, its collection, unless there be some other ground for equitable interposition. ”

“ If it be admitted that one of the most important offices of government is to see that the equities are preserved between its citizens (and if this be not so, to what purpose are our courts of equity instituted?) , then it can not be denied that it is one of the highest offices of government to see that money, which measures all equities, and which must for all time continue to be the principal measure in the service of civilized society, shall be of unchanging value. ”

“ However, in determining the entire net income, for purposes of equitable taxation under this article of the tax law, the tax commission may include income from any source, provided only that the assets from which the income arose shall be included in any segregation for the purpose of computing the tax.↑ The equity jurisdiction to enjoin collection of the tax is not challenged. ”

“ If Congress had intended to prescribe a formal suit in equity as the only mode by which the government could sell real estate upon which it had a lien for internal revenue taxes, and upon which private parties also had liens by mortgage or deed of trust, it would have done so in clear words, particularly as Congress knew at the time of the then-existing remedy by distraint. ”

“ And our review of the injunction as an exercise of the equity power granted by 26 U.S.C. § 7402 (a) must be in light of the public interest involved: 'Courts of equity may, and frequently do, go much farther both to give and withhold relief in furtherance of the public interest than they are accustomed to go when only private interests are involved.' Virginian R. Co. ”

“ While the great mass of promises to pay are met without an appeal to laws or courts, the whole is put in such form by customs of society as to involve the possibility of such arbitration. Government takes no note of debts which cannot be proved in court, and the forms of legal proof are well settled. All the formalities of credit in systems of book-keeping, forms of notes and bonds, and wording of stock certificates imply the possibility of final adjustment in a court of equity. ”

“ Whatever may be thought of the wisdom of their conclusion, one thing is incontrovertible, and that is that they eventually believed the fund in the treasury to be a fund in equity, and that they exercised in regard to it whatever power of a court of equity might be necessary to protect the fund. ”

“ Those bills, or the letters of advice, state, that they were drawn for advances on goods shipped.
1. May not the drawees of the bills be considered as assignees of this property, bound to appropriate the proceeds to the payment of the bills? This would be the case in equity.
In New-York, the point has been decided. If the consignee takes goods, he takes them subject to the lien on them. ”

“ It is said that as the revenue laws treat the trustee and the beneficiary as distinct tax-paying entities, a court of equity must shut its eyes to the fact that in the realm of reality it was the beneficiary's money which paid the tax and it is her money which the petitioners ask the government to return. ”

“ While equity is seldom an ingredient of the tax laws, while they are indeed inherently discriminatory in many ways, reflecting perquisites obtained by pressure groups, [2] we need not increase their harshness by giving simple words unusual or strained meanings-unless of course Congress has plainly made an arbitrary choice. ”

“ The bills in equity, filed since the passage of the act, are independent suits, of broader aim than the actions at law. The actions at law are to recover the amount of coupons only; the bills in equity seek not merely an injunction against setting up the defense of want of seals in the pending actions on the coupons, but also a decree declaring that the bonds shall be deemed valid. ”

“ So, we have seen, local society renders two distinct services4208, which, that the expenses of both may be met, require two distinct assessments, one personal and the other real, one levied on everybody and of which the amount is alike for all, and the other levied only on those whose amount is based on what he spends, on the importance of his business, and on the income from his real estate.—In strict equity, the amount of the former should be equal to the average amount of the latter ”

“ Thompson, supra, and the state courts [2] have recognized and applied the statutory bar to an action at law to equity suits brought in aid of the legal right to recover an assessment upon stockholders. But as we have seen, those cases are referable to the doctrine accepted and applied in the federal courts of equity that equity does not give relief predicated on a legal right which the statute has barred. ”

“ A court of equity is, therefore, hampered in the exercise of its jurisdiction by the necessity of enjoining the tax complained of, in whole or in part, without any power of doing complete justice by making, or causing to be made, a new assessment on any principle it may decide to be the right one. ”

“ Though the principles of equity are to constitute one ground of the decision, the proceeding has nothing in it whatever which will justify its designation as a suit in equity as those terms are used in the act of 1803.
The heads of the different departments are often required by acts or resolutions of Congress to settle claims for losses and liabilities incurred on behalf of the government, or in the attempted performance of contracts on the principles of equity. ”

“ We are met with the proposition that equity ought not to interfere when the law furnishes a remedy; that when a bank has money in its possession which, in fact, belongs to a third party, received from whatever source it may be, an action at law will lie ”

“ To this first principle of equity we may add others, less fundamental, but equally important in practice. Taxes must be sufficiently definite to be understood and provided for by every taxpayer. This is needed for maintaining the interest of every citizen in both the necessity and the economy of public expenditures. Taxes must be so levied and collected as to be conveniently paid. This means that private enterprise shall be hindered as little as possible in making assessments, and that times and places of collection shall be suited to the convenience of taxpayers. ”

“ Britton, 105 U.S. 322, 26 L. ed. 1053: 'The act of Congress does not make the tax on personal property the measure of the tax on the bank shares in the state, but the tax on moneyed capital in the hands of the individual citizens. Credits, money loaned at interest, and demands against persons or corporations, are more purely representative of moneyed capital than personal property, so far as they can be said to differ. ”

“ The equity of this species of taxation is defended on the theory that the individuals of the community whose holdings have been made more valuable by the expenditure of the community’s money should repay at least some portion of that outlay. ”

“ The answer to this objection is, that the property of every person and corporation is by the law valued separately in the first instance; and the only effect of the action of the State board of equalization is to so adjust the assessment that each person or corporation shall pay a tax in proportion to the value of his or its property. ”

“ Congress shall provide said money adequate to the full employment of labor, the equitable distribution of its products, and the requirements of business, fixing a minimum amount per capita of the population as near as may be, and otherwise regulating its value by wise and equitable provisions of law, so that the rate of interest will secure to labor its just reward. ”

“ Why should not the Nation, with its infinite resources, surpass Massachusetts?
The bill before us proposes a new issue of bonds, redeemable in coin after twenty, thirty, and forty years, with interest at five per cent., four and one half per cent., and four per cent., in coin, exempt from State or municipal taxation, and also from national taxation, except the general tax on income,—these bonds to be used exclusively for the conversion of an equal amount of the interest-bearing debt of the United States, except the existing five per cent. bonds and the three per cent. ”

“ As we said in the Pullman case, 'The resources of equity are equal to an adjustment that will avoid the waste of a tentative decision' and any 'needless friction with state policies.' See page 500 of 312 U.S. page 645 of 61 S.Ct., 85 L.Ed. ”

“ The Assembly, however, continu'd firm, believing they had justice on their side, and that it would be giving up an essential right if they suffered the governor to amend their money-bills. In one of the last, indeed, which was for granting fifty thousand pounds, his propos'd amendment was only of a single word. The bill express'd "that all estates, real and personal, were to be taxed, those of the proprietaries not excepted." ”

“ If that course was thus cut off, they could have resorted to a court of equity to enjoin the collection of the illegal excess upon payment or tender of the amount due upon what they admitted to be a just valuation. ”

“ No such power exists; neither the man who holds the real bill, nor the man who discounts it, has any property in the specific goods for which it was given: he as much trusts to the general ability to pay of the giver of the bill, as the holder of any fictitious bill does. The fictitious bill may, in many cases, be a bill given by a person having a large and known capital, a part of which the fictitious bill may be said in that case to represent. ”

“ But we are not free, even in a few cases, to abandon settled principles of annual accounting and statutory construction merely to avoid what the Court thinks Congress might consider an 'inequitable result.' [2]
' (T) he rule that general equitable considerations do not control the measure of deductions or tax benefits cuts both ways. It is as applicable to the Government as to the taxpayer. Congress may be strict or lavish in its allowance of deductions or tax benefits. ”

“ Congress evidently intended by that act, as appears by the one hundred and sixteenth, and the six following sections, to tax all the annual gains, profits, and income of every person residing here, and of every citizen residing abroad, whether derived from any kind of property, rents, interests, dividends, salaries, or from any profession, trade, employment, or vocation, or from any other source whatever, except as therein mentioned, if such annual gains, profits, or income exceed six hundred dollars. ”

“ And now imagine a Congress with a majority composed of such financial geniuses as advocate the “Ohio idea,” every one of whom has his unfailing financial nostrum in his pocket, and that Congress intrusted with the power to determine the value of every man's property, and the chances for profit or loss of every man's enterprise! ”

“ This, however, if admitted, is fatal to any scheme for the extinction of the debt by a general assessment on the community. Persons of property could pay their share of the amount by a sacrifice of property, and have the same net income as before; but if those who have no accumulation 1?, but only incomes, were required to make up by a single payment the equivalent of the annual charge laid on them by the taxes maintained to pay the interest of the debt, they could only do so by incurring a private debt equal to their share of the public debt ”

“ If congress shall hereafter impose an income tax in order to meet the pressing debts of the nation, and to provide for the necessary expenses of the government, it is advised, by the judgment now rendered, that it cannot touch the income from real estate nor the income from personal property, invested or uninvested, except by apportionment among the states on the basis of population. ”