Collins v. Miller

• Decision Date: 31 July 1871
• Parties: BRYANT COLLINS, plaintiff in error v. BRIGHT MILLER, defendant in error.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

43 Ga. 337

BRYANT COLLINS, plaintiff in error v. BRIGHT MILLER, defendant in error.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

(Atlanta, July Term, 1871.)

Tax Relief Act of 1870. Before Judge Harrell. Stewart Superior Court. April Term, 1871.

*This was a suit on a note made in 1859. The plaintiff did not file any affidavit as to payment of taxes under the Relief act of 13th of October, 1870. When it was called, plaintiff's attorney proposed to prove that when said note was made, and ever since, plaintiff was a citizen of and residing in Texas, and contended that this exempted him from the operation of said act, because he owed no tax to Georgia on said note. The Court would not hear the evidence, and dismissed the cause for want of said affidavit. This is assigned as error.

E. G. Raiford, E. H. Worrill, for plaintiff in error.

J. S. Wimberly, M. Gillis, by H. Fielder, for defendants.

McCAY, Judge.

The Act of October 13th, 1870, ought to receive a reasonable construction. We have held in the leading case under that Act, to-wit: —the case of Walker v. Whitehead—that the power of the Legislature to pass it is derived from its power to take any means to enforce the payment of its revenues. We are clear that if the plaintiff, at the time of the contract, and since, has resided out of the State, he owes the State no tax, and never did owe it any tax on this debt. Why should he be compelled to make his affidavit, when a state of facts is admitted which show there has never been any tax due? This is not like an effort to show the tax has been paid, and thus escape the consequence of having failed to file the affidavit. The facts show that this was not a taxable debt—that it was not one of the debts contemplated by the Act of October 13th, 1870.

Our tax laws, in terms, tax notes, bonds, etc., held by a citizen of this State on citizens of other States: Code, section 798. Theinference is strong that it was not intended to tax debts held by citizens and residents of other States on *persons in this State. Section 800 of the Code, it is true, provides that all property of nonresidents, if it be in this State, shall be taxed, and there may be some ground for holding that a debt on a resident of Georgia is property in this State. Indeed, there are decisions of Courts to this effect. If, however, this be the truth, all the lawyers in Georgia, since the ad valorem tax rule has been introduced, have been violating the law. We have never heard of an instance where a lawyer...