Carroll v. Town of York
| Decision Date | 24 January 1918 |
| Docket Number | 9874. |
| Parties | CARROLL v. TOWN OF YORK ET AL. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of York County; H. F. Rice Judge.
Proceedings by W. R. Carroll against the Town of York, J. C. Wilborn Mayor, A. T. Hart, John S. Sandifer, C. F. Sherer, Thomas W Speck, J. G. Dickson, and William Dickson, Aldermen constituting the town council of said town of York, S. C., to avoid payment of license. From a judgment allowing the exaction and collection of the tax, W. R. Carroll appeals. Affirmed.
Code of Laws, § 2947, referred to in the opinion, is as follows: "Said city or town council may, and they are hereby authorized annually to require by ordinance the payment of such reasonable sums of money as a license by any person or persons, corporation or corporations, engaged in any calling, business, occupation or profession, in whole or in part, within the limits of said cities or towns, except those engaged in the calling or profession of teachers or ministers of the gospel: Provided, that said license shall be graduated according to the gross income of the persons, firms or corporations required to pay such license, or upon the amount of capital invested in said business. They shall have power to collect license or taxes from all persons representing publicly within the limits of said city or town, for gain or reward, any plays or shows of whatever nature or kind soever; and said city or town council are hereby authorized and empowered to give full force and effect to this section and to punish delinquents thereunder: Provided, that no city, town or village within this state shall collect any occupation license or tax from any person or persons engaged in the business of buying or selling cotton in bales or cotton seed in any such city, town or village.
Nothing herein contained shall apply to cities of more than 50,000 population. This act shall not apply to the counties of Sumter, Clarendon, Orangeburg or Greenville."
Those provisions of the two Constitutions which have reference to town taxation and government are:
Article 9, § 8, Const. 1868. Title, Finance and Taxation:
Sec. 8. "The Corporate authorities of * * * cities * * * may be vested with power to assess and collect taxes for corporate purposes; such taxes to be uniform in respect to persons and property * * * and the General Assembly shall require that all the property * * * shall be taxed. * * *"
Article 9, § 9, Const. 1868. Title, Finance and Taxation:
Sec. 9. "The General Assembly shall provide for the incorporation and organization of cities * * * and shall restrict their powers of taxation, borrowing money, contracting debts, and loaning their credit."
Article 8, §§ 1, 3, Const. 1895. Title, Municipal Corporations:
Sec. 3. "The General Assembly shall restrict the powers of cities * * * to levy taxes and assessments, to borrow money and contract debts and no tax or assessment shall be levied or debt contracted except in pursuance of law, for public purposes specified by law."
Article 8, § 6, Const. 1895. Title, Municipal Corporations:
Sec. 6. "The corporate authorities of cities shall be vested with power to assess and collect taxes for corporate purposes.
Article 10, §§ 1, 5, Const. 1895. Title, Finance and Taxation.
Sec. 1. "The General Assembly may provide for * * * a graduated license on occupations and business."
Sec. 5. "The Corporate authorities of * * * towns * * * may be vested with power to assess and collect taxes for corporate purposes; such taxes to be uniform in respect to persons and property. * * *"
J. S. Brice, of York, and W. F. Stevenson, of Cheraw, for appellant.
W. W. Lewis, of York, for respondents.
This cause involves the right of the town of York to exact from the plaintiff, Carroll, a license tax for the business of "buying or selling cotton in bales or cotton seed." Such a tax was exacted and collected, and the circuit court allowed it. From that judgment Carroll has appealed to this court.
The court held to four postulates, to wit:
First. The Constitution of 1895 gives the town an inherent right to collect a license tax. Article 8, § 6. The Legislature may provide the method of that collection, but it may not take away that right of collection.
Second. The power given the Legislature to restrict taxation by towns (article 8, § 3) does not include the power to prohibit a license tax by a town.
Third. The Constitution of 1895 directed the Legislature to organize and classify towns, and to define the powers of each class, so that no town in any class should have powers or be subject to restrictions not common to other towns in the same class. Article 8, § 1. The Legislature did that by act of 1896 (22 St. at large, p. 67), but the amendment proviso at issue in the instant case restrains York to collect the tax, and does not restrain Manning, etc.; and for that reason the amendment proviso is void.
Fourth. The statute in question (Act 1911; Code, 2947) is void because violative of the Constitution at article 3, § 34, to wit, the proviso is not the enactment of a special provision in a general law.
The town rests its right upon section 2947 of the Code of Laws. Carroll rests his right upon the same section. The Reporter will set out the said section, and he will also set out those relevant parts of the Constitution of 1868 and of 1895 which are attached to this opinion.
The suggestion of the town of York is that so much of section 2947 as denies to York the right to collect a cotton license tax is prohibited by the state Constitution of 1895. Section 2947 is a composite statute, made up chiefly out of the act of 1896 and the act of 1911. Other statutes codified into it are irrelevant to the issue made in this case. The bulk of the section was enacted in 1896, directly after the constitutional convention adjourned, and to carry out the directions of that instrument, that the General Assembly should forthwith enact general laws concerning the incorporation of cities, towns, or villages. Article 3, § 34, subd. 12. And York rests its right upon that enactment, which conferred upon it and upon all towns in its class the power to exact a license fee from all persons engaged in any business within the town. So much of the section 2947 which is relevant to the present issue and which follows the second proviso of the section was enacted in 1911. That act does not by the terms of it amend the act of 1896, but it operates to do so; and the amendment would not be questioned, but for the third section of it, which exempts 5 towns and cities from its operation. And that purported exemption makes the issue now to be decided. That exemption is challenged by York under article 8, § 1, of the Constitution, which lays upon the General Assembly the duty to provide by general laws for the organization and classification of municipal corporations, and which directs that the powers of each class shall be defined so that no such corporation shall have any powers or be subject to any restrictions other than all corporations of the same class. York charges that 4 other towns admittedly in her class have not been restricted to collect the same tax which she is restricted to collect, and that is what the Constitution prohibits. The act of 1896 was plainly violative of the first section of the article on Municipal Corporations. That section is of a piece with section 34 of the article on Legislative Department; and the object of both of them, as we have often declared, was to prohibit innumerable statutes about like subjects, to make uniform the statute law on like subjects, and to secure a common legislative mind and action on large public interests.
In the instant case the restriction laid upon some 40 towns was with reference to the state's staple agricultural product. There is no reason why four towns of the state should have the power to levy a license tax upon the vendors of cotton, while 40 other towns were prohibited to do so. The entire act of 1911 must fall, because its parts are not severable, the right it gives to 4 towns cannot be sustained, because the same right is denied to 40 other towns. The restriction it lays upon 40 towns cannot be sustained, because a like restriction is not laid on 4 other towns. Paris Mt. Water Co. v. Greenville, 105 S.C. 184, 89 S.E. 669. The codification in 1912 of the statute of 1911 has not operated to remove it from the constitutional inhibition before referred to. Section 2947, as much as did the act of 1911, puts a restriction upon York which is not put upon other towns in the same class. The infirmity we have considered does not, however, nullify the entire section 2947 of the codification. So much of that section down to the second proviso is severable from that which follows, and the provisions of it stand intact. State v. Burns, 73 S.C. 196, 52 S.E. 960.
It is however, suggested by the appellant that apart from the article on Municipal Corporations...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
City of Aurora v. Spectra Commc'ns Grp., LLC
...Or. 286, 59 P.2d 228, 300 (1936) ; Pa. Tpk. Comm'n v. Commonwealth , 587 Pa. 347, 899 A.2d 1085, 1094-97 (2006) ; Carroll v. Town of York , 109 S.C. 1, 95 S.E. 121, 123 (1918) ; Associated Gen. Contractors v. Schreiner , 492 N.W.2d 916, 924-25 (S.D. 1992) ; McCarver v. Ins. Co. of Pa. , 208......
-
Salley v. McCoy
...for municipal government." In support of their positions in this regard they cite Fooshe v. McDonald, 82 S.C. 22, 63 S.E. 3; Carroll v. York, 109 S.C. 1, 95 S.E. 121; v. Touchberry, 121 S.C. 5, 113 S.E. 345; Spartanburg County v. Miller, 135 S.C. 348, 132 S.E. 673; Carolina Grocery Company ......
-
Byrd v. Lawrimore
... ... Certain manufacturing enterprises exempt from county ... taxes, Charleston, Georgetown, and York Counties.--Be it ... resolved by the General Assembly of the State of South ... Carolina: That ... first ratified by a majority of such qualified electors of ... such city or town as shall vote at an election held for that ... purpose.' There is certainly nothing in this ... v. Burnet, 61 S.C. [205] ... 213, 214, 39 S.E. 381, 58 L.R.A. 687; Carroll v ... York, 109 S.C. 1, 95 S.E. 121. Fortunately however, the ... particular language of this ... ...
-
Gaud v. Walker
...to embrace the governmental affairs of counties. Carolina Grocery Co. v. Burnet, 61 S.C. 205, 39 S.E. 381, 58 L.R.A. 687; Carroll v. Town of York et al., supra; State v. Touchberry, 121 S.C. 5, 113 S.E. In speaking of the meaning of the term 'municipal government' as used in this section, t......