Tax collector

“ The General Trading Company is, in the language of the opinion, made 'the tax collector for the tax.' We have heretofore held, and I think properly, that the state may make tax collectors of those who come in and do business within its jurisdiction, for thereby they submit themselves to its power. ”

“ If any person 'liable to tax' fails to pay the taxes assessed against him within the time prescribed, the collector may 'make distraint therefor as provided by law.' Section 3185. The tax so due from any person 'liable to pay' it, together with the interest, penalties, and costs that may accrue in addition thereto, is a lien in favor of the government upon all property, and rights of property, 'belonging to such person.' Section 3186. ”

“ A personal demand at the dweiling houses of those who have neglected to attend to this notice must then be made, a reasonable time before the collector can collect the tax by distress. Where lands are owned by non-residents whose places of residence are known, this personal notice is still required; and where their residence is unknown, certain publications are substituted for and deemed equivalent to personal notice and demand. In each case, it is made the duty of the collector to proceed to collect the tax by distress and sale. ”

“ Every collector shall call at least once on the person taxed, or at his usual place of residence, and shall demand payment of the taxes charged on him. If any one shall refuse to pay the tax imposed on him, the collector shall levy the same by distress and sale of his property. ”

“ The tax commissioners are compelled to take any man’s affidavit as to the value of his personal property, and, as Commissioner Baker put it, “Where it’s a question of dollars and cents, we find every man’s conscience becomes rather pliable.”
Mr. Gould seems not to have cared to pass as an exception to so well-established a rule, and hence the modest estimate he placed on his earthly possessions for the purposes of the tax collector. As a result of this trustful feature of the assessment laws, $25,000 a year is said to be an ample estimate for the entire amount of annual taxes Mr. ”

“ If any person has been taxed who ought to have been exempted, or if any person has been taxed beyond his proportion, though both must pay in the meantime, yet if they complain, and make good their complaints, the whole parish is reimposed next year in order to reimburse them. If any of the contributors become bankrupt or insolvent, the collector is obliged to advance his tax, and the whole parish is reimposed next year in order to reimburse the collector. ”

“ The authority of the officer to sell is, as it was in this case, 'unless the taxes be previously paid to the collector, with such expenses as may have accrued at the time of payment.' There is a difference, it is true, in the strictness required in a tax sale, and that of a sale made under judgment and execution, but in both, the same rule applies as to the full notice of time which the law requires to be given for the sale. 'In deciding upon tax land titles great strictness has always been observed. ”

“ The tax duplicates had been placed in the hands of a collector, and they had been called upon to pay the same. The bill prayed for an answer, and for a perpetual injunction from further proceedings to collect the said taxes; and for further and other relief. ”

“ Persons engaged in business subject to such special tax are required to register with the collector of the district their names, style, place of residence, trade, or business, and the place where such trade or business is to be carried on; and the provision is that in case of a firm or company the names of the partners or persons constituting the same and their places of residence shall also be given, but that only one special tax shall be required of a partnership doing business at only one place. ”

“ Section two directs that 'the General Assembly shall provide for levying a tax by valuation, so that every person or corporation shall pay a tax in proportion to the value of his or her property; such value to be ascertained by some person or persons to be elected or appointed in such manner as the General Assembly shall direct, and not otherwise.' Section five directs that 'the corporate authorities of counties, townships, school districts, cities, towns, and villages, may be vested with power to assess and collect taxes for corporate purposes ”

“ A collector selling land for taxes, must act in conformity with the law from which his power is derived, and the purchaser is bound to inquire whether he has so acted. It is incumbent on the vendor to prove his power to sell. Stead’s Executors v. Course, 4 Cranch, 403; 2 Cond. Rep. 151.
Under the act of Congress to lay and collect a direct tax, (July 14, 1798,) before the collector could sell the land of an unknown proprietor for non-payment of this tax, it was necessary that he should advertise the copy of the list of lands, &c. ”

“ It is easy, for example, to show that the collector has posted up the necessary notifications in four public places in his collection district, as is required by the 9th section, but very difficult to show that he has not. He may readily prove that he has made a personal demand on the person liable for the tax, but the negative, in many cases, would not admit of proof. ”

“ A state may tax personal property and might well tax it to one in whose possession it was found, but it could hardly tax one of its citizens because of moneys of the United States which were in his possession as Collector of Internal Revenue, Postmaster, Clerk of the United States Court, or other federal officer, agent, or contractor. We hold that Government-owned property, to the full extent of the Government's interest therein, is immune from taxation, either as against the Government itself or as against one who holds it as a bailee. ”

“ It bespeaks an audacious lack of humor to suggest that the law anywhere under any circumstances requires tax collectors who send out tax bills, and who also have complete control over the returns, to send out bills to an amount which they predeterminedly design to put in part to personal uses. ”

“ Upon a computation of the credits the final balance was ascertained to be in favor of the Government. The balance thereby fixed was reported to the taxpayer. After the schedule of refunds and credits had been signed by the Commissioner, the collector transmitted to the taxpayer a new statement of account by which it was clearly made to appear that the overassessment had been credited upon the tax for 1917, and that after such credit there was still owing from the taxpayer a balance of $5,829.07, which, together with the accrued interest, was thereupon collected. ”

“ But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn't something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector's share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven't balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. ”

“ Board of Assessors, 121 La. 116, 46 So. 122, where open accounts arising on the sale of merchandise were the subject of the assessment, the court said: 'There can be no serious question but that the legislature has provided that credits due upon open accounts arising out of business done in this state by nonresidents shall be taxed. . . . The state imposes this tax because of her need of the revenue to be derived from it; she extends to the business the protection of her laws, and seeks to make the business bear its just proportion of the burden of taxation. ”

“ The collection of the use tax from inhabitants is a difficult administrative problem, and if out-of-state vendors can be compelled to collect it and remit it to the taxing state, it simplifies administration. ”

“ The ordinance allows wide latitude for administrative construction, both by the provision which requires the comptroller to make interpretative rules and regulations, and that which commands him to prepare the form for the return on the basis of which the tax is to be computed. Until the form is prepared, the most that can be required of taxpayer is that they apply for the license and for the form on which to make their tax returns. Without the return there can be no tax, and no penalty can be imposed for its nonpayment. ”

“ The adoption of the taxing act, as recommended by the commission, may therefore be taken, as appellant contends, to evidence a definite and specific legislative purpose to levy a new type of franchise tax, measured by corporate net income, including the tax exempt income from federal and state bonds. ”

“ In the first place, no attempt has been made by the Treasury to collect further taxes, upon the theory that the payment of the additional taxes creates further income, and the question of a tax upon a tax was not before the Circuit Court of Appeals, and has not been certified to this Court. We can settle questions of that sort when an attempt to impose a tax upon a tax is undertaken, but not now. ”

“ The tax was not eo nomine on the notes, but was expressed to be on 'credits, money loaned, bills receivable,' etc., and its amount was ascertained by computing the sum of the face value of all the notes held by the company at the time of the assessment.
The purpose of the taxing law was said to be to lay the burden of taxation equally upon those who do business within the state. ”

“ And the amount of the taxation may be determined by the value of the property, or its use, or its capacity, or its productiveness. It may touch business in the almost infinite forms in which it is conducted, in professions, in commerce, in manufactures, and in transportation. Unless restrained by provisions of the Federal Constitution, the power of the State as to the mode, form, and extent of taxation is unlimited, where the subjects to which it applies are within her jurisdiction. ”

“ It has unhesitatingly brushed aside all legislation of the State impairing their obligation. When a tax has been authorized by law to meet them, it has compelled the officers of assessment to proceed and levy the tax, and the officers of collection to proceed and collect it, and apply the proceeds. ”

“ But to recognize the increment in value as affecting earnings and profits would no more harmonize with the taxless character of the transaction than to treat a realized gain as doing so. The same policy which carries over the transferor's basis for purposes of the corporation's income tax, § 113 (a) (8) , requires carrying it over for determining the taxability of its distributions as the Commissioner's regulation directs: gains and losses are to be brought into earnings and profits at the time and 'to the extent' that they are recognized under § 112. ”

“ All State taxation which does not impair the agent's efficiency in the discharge of his duties to the government has been sustained when challenged, and a tax upon his property generally has not been regarded as beyond the power of a State to impose. ”

“ Such must be the operation of all taxes on sales or exchanges. The owner in reality pays it, whether laid on the vender or purchaser. It matters not in the sale of a tract of land, or any other article, if a tax be imposed on the sale, whether it be paid by him who sells or him who buys, the amount must, in both cases, be deducted from the price. ”

“ On the 25th of that month, the legislature passed an act providing that from the interest payable out of the treasury on bonds of the State, whether funded or unfunded, there should be retained a tax equal in amount to fifty cents on the one hundred dollars of their market value, on the first day in April of each year, and made it the duty of every officer of the Commonwealth, charged with the collection of taxes, to deduct from the matured coupons which might be tendered to him in payment of taxes, or other dues to the State, such tax as was then or might thereafter be imposed on the bonds. ”

“ The contract refers only to Federal taxes, existing or future, on 'material', 'articles' or 'supplies.' And additional compensation is provided to offset only Federal taxes of the type of sales taxes and processing taxes, 'applicable directly upon production, manufacture, or sale' and actually paid on supplies delivered to the Government. Since a tax on payrolls, or on the relationship of employment, is not-but in fact is distinct from the type of tax 'on' articles represented by sales taxes and processing taxes, respondent is not entitled to the additional compensation which it seeks. ”

“ But taxation is not so much concerned with the refinements of title as it is with actual command over the property taxed-the actual benefit for which the tax is paid. If a man directed his bank to pay over income as received to a servant or friend, until further orders, no one would doubt that he could be taxed upon the amounts so paid. ”

“ Taxes shall be levied and collected for public purposes only. They shall be uniform upon all property subject to taxation within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax; and all taxes shall be levied and collected by general laws.' By § 172: 'All property, not exempted from taxation by this Constitution, shall be assessed for taxation at its fair cash value, estimated at the price it would bring at a fair voluntary sale ”

“ There were received from the same sources 20,654,000 dollars in the years 1815, 1816 and 1817.
The preparatory measures necessary, in order to insure an immediate collection of internal taxes, whenever the laws imposing such taxes shall have been passed, are those on which I may speak with confidence. These consist simply in a previous organization of the machinery necessary for the collection of every species of internal taxes, and the assessment of a direct tax. [Pg 56] The proper selection of the numerous officers necessary for the collection always consumes several months. ”