Billings v. United States

Syllabus

<p>The jurisdiction of this court on direct writ of error is not confined to the constitutional questions, but embraces every issue in the case. Williamson v. United, States, 207 U. S. 425.</p> <p>The Circuit Court of Appeals has no power to ask instructions upon an issue which it has no right to decide, nor has this court authority to instruct on such a subject.</p> <p>This court cannot refuse to decide questions which are properly before it for judgment.</p> <p>Where one party has taken a writ of error direct from this court to the Circuit Court based on the constitutional question decided against it, and the other party has obtained a writ of error from the Circuit Court of Appeals as .to other questions decided against it, which court has certified that question to this court, and the record is in such condition as to enable this court to decide the whole case, this court may treat the writ of error from the Circuit Court of Appeals as a cross-writ and so determine all the issues involved.</p> <p>Under § 37 of the Tariff Act of August, 1909, imposing a tax on the use of foreign-built yachts owned or chartered for more than six months by citizens of the United States, to be collected annually on September 1, the tax became due on the first day of September next occurring after the act became effective; further held that the six months’ clause relates only to the chartering of the yachts, and the word “annually” indicates continuity and that the tax is not a sporadic one to cease after a single payment.</p> <p>Where words are used in a statute in their every-day sense and not in a , technical one, they should be so construed.</p> <p>The use of a foreign-built yacht which renders the owner subject to the tax imposed by § 37 of the Tariff. Act of 1909 is active and actual use and not the potential use arising from the mere fact of ownership. See Pierce v. United States, p. 290, post.</p> <p>The fact that a tax statute operates retroactively does not necessarily caus