In re Weeks

• Citation: 82 F. 729
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Vermont
• Decision Date: 06 October 1897
• Parties: In re WEEKS.

82 F. 729

In re WEEKS.

United States District Court, D. Vermont.

October 6, 1897

John H Senter, for relator.

Fred A Howland, for the State of Vermont.

WHEELER District Judge.

The laws of the United States provide that the secretary of the treasury shall prescribe 'rules and regulations not inconsistent with law, to be used under and in the execution and enforcement of the various provisions of the internal revenue laws,' and 'give such directions to collectors, and prescribe such rules and forms to be observed by them, as may be necessary for the proper execution of the law' (Rev.St.Sec. 251); that 'the commissioner of internal revenue, under the direction of the secretary of the treasury, shall have general superintendence of the assessment and collection of all duties and taxes, now or hereafter imposed by any law providing internal revenue, and shall prepare and distribute all the instructions regulations, directions, forms, blanks, stamps, and other matters pertaining to the assessment and collection of internal revenue' (section 321); for a special tax on among others, retail dealers in liquors (section 3244); to be paid by stamps (section 3238); that collectors shall place and keep in their offices, for public inspection, an alphabetical list of the names of all persons who have paid such special taxes within their districts, with the time, business, and place of business for which such taxes have been paid (section 3240); that every person engaged in such business shall place and keep conspicuously in his establishment or place of business all stamps denoting the payment of such tax (section 3239). The laws of the state provide for punishing common liquor sellers, and for abating and enjoining places of sale as common nuisances, and that 'the payment of the United States special tax as a liquor seller shall be held to be prima facie evidence that the person paying the same is a common seller, and the premises so kept by him are a common nuisance. ' V.S. Sec. 4476. The collector's office for this district is kept at Portsmouth, N.H. The commissioner of internal revenue, presumably with approval of the secretary of the treasury, issued on March 31, 1888, instructions to this collector, containing, among others, these, which have not been modified, but rather extended:

'A special taxpayer is required, under severe pains and penalties, to make his return under oath. The information is extorted from him. It is largely in the nature of a privileged communication, which he is required to make to the revenue officer, for revenue purposes, and for those alone. It is not believed the courts will require a disclosure of evidence thus obtained for use in a criminal prosecution of him who furnished it. It is respectfully insisted that neither the return itself, nor information derived from it should be admitted on trial, especially if objected to by the accused.' In the case of Gardner v. Anderson (U.S. Cir. Ct. D. Md, before Judges Bond and Giles) 22 Int.Rev.Rec. 41, Fed.Cas.No. 5,220 although the point involved was as to official communications between officers of the government, the court made a remark which is applicable to the question now under...