Nash v. State

• Citation: 21 Ala.App. 613,110 So. 797
• Decision Date: 14 December 1926
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 26
• Parties: NASH v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

110 So. 797

21 Ala.App. 613

NASH v. STATE.

6 Div. 26

Court of Appeals of Alabama

December 14, 1926

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lamar County; R.L. Blanton, Judge.

E.V Nash was convicted of violating the revenue laws in failing to take out the required license for doing business as wholesale lumber dealer, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

J.C Milner, of Vernon, for appellant.

Harwell G. Davis, Atty. Gen., for the State.

SAMFORD J.

Schedule 125 of the Revenue Code of 1923, being the same as Schedule 122 of the Revenue Act of 1919 (Acts 1919, p. 437), provides a license tax for each person, firm, or corporation engaged in operating a sawmill, the amount being fixed by the capacity of the mill operated. Schedule 129 of the 1923 Code being the same as schedule 126 of the 1919 acts, provides a license tax for each exporter, wholesale dealer, or jobber of lumber and timber. The corporation of which defendant was manager, paid the license under schedule 125, supra, but refused to comply with schedule 129, supra, claiming that whatever business was done by the corporation was protected by its license under schedule 125. It is admitted that whatever business was done was the act of defendant as the alter ego of the Kentucky Lumber Company, a corporation of which he was manager. It also appears that the only business carried on by the Kentucky Lumber Company was through its sawmill at Sulligent, Ala., which sawmill was equipped with complete machinery for the manufacture of lumber, and that for the most part this manufacture began with rough logs, and ended when the finished product was in standard shapes, sizes, and grades, ready for market. A small percentage of the material for standard lumber was purchased from small and inferior mills near by, none of which had been completely manufactured into standard product. When the rough dimension product was purchased, it was in every instance put through a process of manufacture in defendant's mill to bring it to standard requirements necessary for it to be sold as standard lumber.

From a reading of schedule 125, supra, covering sawmills of every capacity then being operated in this state, we have no doubt that in fixing this license the Legislature had in mind lumber plants such as is operated by the defendant, which includes all machines necessary to bring lumber from the crude to the finished product, and certainly there can be no doubt as to the...