City of Norfolk v. Griffin Bros.

Citations

• 120 Va. 524
• 91 S.E. 640
• 1917 Va. LEXIS 138

Syllabus

<p>1. Licenses — Municipal Corporations — Taxation.—The charter of the city of Norfolk provides that: “For the execution of its powers and duties the city council may raise annually by taxes and assessments in said city, such sums of money as they shall deem necessary to defray the expenses of the same, and in such manner as it shall deem expedient, in accordance with the constitution and laws of this State and of the United States.” Under this provision the municipality may tax other subjects than and in addition to those taxed by the State. It may also adopt a different method of laying the tax from that adopted by the State on the same subject — such as an ad valorem method instead of by license. But the city has not the power to divide a. single taxable privilege, consisting of the right to conduct the business of a contractor, as classified and defined for the purpose of State taxation in the form of a State license, into several businesses so as to require several separate city licenses, one for each of the elements of right named in the city ordinance, which all accrue to the citizen under one State license.</p> <p>2. Licenses- — Power of Municipalities. — When- the legislature embodied in the charter of the city of Norfolk the limitation that its action under the clause of its charter above quoted should be in a manner “in accordance with the constitution and laws of this State and the United States,” the charter in effect itself provided that the municipality should not in acting thereunder enact any ordinance of classification for purposes of taxation in conflict with a classification adopted by the laws of the State; for the inevitable result of such a conflict in enactment between the State and the municipality would be a violation of the uniformity in operation of laws sought to be attained by the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States — which purpose, indeed, of attainment of uniformity so far as practicable, al