Commonwealth v. Bay State Milling Co
| Decision Date | 22 May 1933 |
| Docket Number | 36 |
| Citation | 312 Pa. 28,167 A. 307 |
| Parties | Commonwealth, Appellant, v. Bay State Milling Co |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued March 24, 1933
Appeal, No. 36, March T., 1933, by plaintiff, from judgment of C.P. Allegheny Co., Oct. T., 1932, No. 2128, for defendant, on case stated, in suit of Commonwealth v. Bay State Milling Co. Affirmed.
Case stated to determine liability for mercantile tax assessment.
The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts.
Judgment for defendant. Plaintiff appealed.
Error assigned was judgment, quoting record.
The judgment is affirmed.
Alexander Cooper, with him Herman J. Goldberg, Deputy Attorney General and Wm. A. Schnader, Attorney General, for appellants. -- Bakers are not dealers in or venders of goods, wares and merchandise, but are wholesalers: Norris Bros. v Com., 27 Pa. 494; Com. v. Campbell, 33 Pa. 380; Com. v. Dressed Beef Co., 245 Pa. 605; Com. v. Lowry-Rodgers Co., 279 Pa. 361; Com. v. Potter, 159 Pa. 583; Com. v. Cover, 29 Pa.Super. 409; Com. v. Bailey, Banks & Biddle Co., 20 Pa.Super. 210; Pitts. Brewers' & Bottlers' Supply Co.'s Mercantile Tax, 38 Pa.Super. 121.
Mahlon E. Lewis, of Alter, Wright & Barron, for appellee, cited: Pitts. Brewers' & Bottlers' Supply Co.'s Mercantile Tax, 38 Pa.Super. 121; Atlantic Refining Co. v. Van Valkenburg, 265 Pa. 456; Marsh v. Groner, 258 Pa. 473; Com. v. Greenwood, 205 Mass. 124.
Before FRAZER, C.J., SIMPSON, KEPHART, SCHAFFER, MAXEY, DREW and LINN, JJ.
Is a milling company which sells flour to bakers in quantities ranging from twenty-five barrels to carload lots of two hundred and forty barrels a wholesaler or a retailer, when it comes to the assessment of mercantile license taxes against it? The answer which springs spontaneously to mind upon hearing the proposition is that it is a wholesaler, because that term undeniably connotes what the company is doing, selling in large quantities, -- as a wholesaler. The Commonwealth in effect argues that the universally accepted and understood meaning of the word "wholesale" is not to be applied, that the word has an opposite meaning when employed in the mercantile tax act, that it is to be construed antithetically, that "wholesale" means "retail," that "large" means "small."
The Act (May 2, 1899, P.L. 184, 72 P.S., sections 2621-2624, as amended by the Act of May 10, 1929, P.L. 1709) in its pertinent sections provides:
For the position which it takes the Commonwealth relies upon the language of the act that "all persons who shall sell to dealers in or venders of goods, wares and merchandise, and to no other person or persons, shall be taken under the provisions of this act [to] be wholesalers; and all other venders of or dealers in goods, wares and merchandise shall be retailers, and shall pay an annual license tax as provided in this act for retailers." The argument is that bakers are manufacturers and not dealers or vendors and, therefore, in selling to them the milling company is not selling to dealers or venders. This leaves out of account that manufacturers may also be dealers and venders. In fact in the broad acceptation of the terms, manufacturers are dealers and venders, because they deal in and vend their own products. Manufacturing companies have been separately classed for tax purposes from other dealers and venders, because, as such, they are exempt from certain taxes by the taxing statutes. This classification, however, does not take them out of the dealer and vender class for all purposes, and particularly does not do so when it comes to definition and the fixing of the meaning of words as they are usually understood.
To adopt the Commonwealth's view we should have to...
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