Commonwealth v. Lehigh Valley Railroad

Citations

• 186 Pa. 235
• 40 A. 491
• 1898 Pa. LEXIS 988

Syllabus

<p>Taxation — Tax on corporation bonds — Nonresidents—Presumption—Acts of June 30, 1885, and June 8, 1891.</p> <p>Under see. I of the Act of June 80, 1885, P. L. 198, amended by the Act of June 8, 1891, P. L. 229, providing that it shall be the duty of the treasurer of each private corporation upon the payment of any interest on any script, bond or certificate of indebtedness issued by said corporation to residents of this commonwealth, and hold by them, to assess the tax imposed and provided for state purposes upon the nominal value of each and every of said evidences of debt owned by residents of this commonwealth as nearly as the same can be ascertained, and to deduct four mills on the dollar and pay the same into the state treasury, there is no presumption that the bonds of domestic or Pennsylvania corporations are held by residents of the state.</p> <p>The tax on the bonds of corporations is not in any sense or in any degree a tax on the corporation or its property, but on the individual citizen of the state who holds the bonds. The corporation is chargeable with it only as a collector, and by reason of default in the duty to collect. The duty of the corporation is to use diligence to ascertain the residence of its bondholders, and whether it has or has not done so is a question of fact iu each case to be determined by the circumstances and the evidence.</p>