Hull v. Southern Development Co. of Hagerstown

• Decision Date: 14 March 1899
• Citation: 42 A. 943,89 Md. 8
• Parties: HULL, Tax Collector, v. SOUTHERN DEVELOPMENT CO. OF HAGERSTOWN.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

42 A. 943

89 Md. 8

HULL, Tax Collector, v. SOUTHERN DEVELOPMENT CO. OF HAGERSTOWN.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

March 14, 1899

Appeal from circuit court, Washington county; David W. Sloan, Judge.

Exceptions by the Southern Development Company of Hagerstown to the sale of its property to satisfy assessments of its capital stock made by D. Frank Hull, tax collector, and reported for ratification. There was an order setting the sale aside, and the collector appeals. Dismissed.

Argued before MCSHERRY, C.J., and PAGE, PEARCE, ROBERTS, BRISCOE and SCHMUCKER, JJ.

Hy. Kyd Douglas, Wm. F. Smith, and George A. Davis, for appellant. Alexander Armstrong and Richard B. Tippett, for appellee.

MCSHERRY C.J.

The Southern Development Company of Hagerstown is a body corporate. It was charged on the assessment books of Washington county with county taxes on the shares of its capital stock. These taxes being unpaid for the year 1895 the collector levied on its real estate, and subsequently sold the same to satisfy the amount claimed to be due, not on the property sold, but upon the shares of its capital stock owned by its stockholders. The ratification of the sale was objected to on various grounds. The sale was finally set aside by the circuit court, and the tax collector then took this appeal.

A motion has been made to dismiss the appeal; and, though that motion must prevail, for reasons that will be stated later on, we have been urged to express our views on the merits of the case. As the question involved is of considerable importance, and relates to the method to be pursued in the collection of this class of taxes, we are led to examine and decide it; for it is not at all probable that it will ever again be more fully or thoroughly discussed at the bar than it has been in this case. By section 141, art. 81, of the Code, as amended by Act 1896, c. 120, it is in substance provided that the taxable value of shares of the capital stock of banks, corporations, and joint-stock companies shall be ascertained by deducting the assessed value of the real estate owned by the banks, corporations, and joint-stock companies from the aggregate value of all the shares, and by then dividing the residuum by the number of the shares of the capital stock; and the quotient is then delared to be the taxable value of each share for taxation by the state. It is further provided by the same section that this valuation shall be certified to the county commissioners of counties and to the appeal tax court of Baltimore, by the state tax commissioner, and that the taxable value of such shares owned by residents of this state shall, for county and municipal purposes, be valued to the owners thereof in the county or city in which such owners may reside. The section then continues: "But the taxes assessed upon said respective taxable values of such respective share or shares of stock shall be collected from such bank, corporation or jointstock company, and when so paid shall be charged by such bank corporation or jointstock company to the account of such stockholder or stockholders respectively." It is quite apparent, and we have heretofore held in United States Electric Power & Light Co. v. State, 79 Md. 70, 28 A 768, that this tax on the shares of stock is a tax due, not by...